
MASTER VERGIL 


NITCHIE 











s 

























MASTER VERGIL 


PRINTED FOR THE AMERICAN CLASSICAL LEAGUE 
IN HONOR OF THE BIMILLENIUM VERGILIANUM BY 
D. C. HEATH AND COMPANY, PUBLISHERS OF 
PHARR’S VERGIL AND OTHER BOOKS IN THE 
NEW HEATH LATIN SERIES 




















MASTER VERGIL 


An Anthology of Poems 
in English on Vergil 

AND VeRGILIAN THEMES 


Compiled and Edited by 

ELIZABETH NITCHIE 

n 


/ 



Tu se’lo mio maestro e il 
mio autore .— Dante 


D. C. HEATH AND COMPANY 


BOSTON 

ATLANTA 


NEW YORK 
SAN FRANCISCO 
LONDON 


CHICAGO 

DALLAS 




t#e* 







Copyright, 1930, 

By D. C. Heath and Company 


i 


3 B O 



©CU 20671 ^ 

PRINTED IN D.S.A. 


2.9 13oq J 


VIRGIL 


As when the gracious moon climbs up the sky, 

Drenching parched fields with dew on summer eves, 

The murmuring brook, ’twixt low banks rippling by, 

Ofi her white beams a silvery network weaves; 

The secret nightingale among the leaves 
Fills the vast calm with throbbing melody, 

So sweet th ’ entranced wayfarer half believes 
Time is not, and his fair-haired love seems nigh; 

And the bereaved mother who wept in vain 
Beside a grave is soothed and comforted, 

When the gray dawn doth over heaven shine: 

Mountains and distant sea smile out again, 

A fresh breeze stirs the branches overhead: 

Such is thy verse to me, 0 poet divine. 

— Giosue Carducci 








PREFACE 

Because in the year 70 b.c. a boy was born near Man¬ 
tua who was destined to be the greatest of Roman poets, 
the last twenty centuries have been the richer. Although 
schoolboys, forced to scan and to construe, may, as Byron 
says, be glad when they no longer need “to groan o’er 
Virgil’s devilish verses,” lovers of poetry would rather agree 
with Harvey, who, again according to Byron, “used to 
fling away Virgil in his ecstasy of admiration and say, ‘the 
book had a devil.’ ” Vergil, the magician, has conjured with 
his verses, and holds bound with a spell his willing victims. 
No maleficium here, no black art, although the Middle Ages 
credited Vergil with a knowledge of “nigromancy,” but the 
white art of a great teller of tales, a great poet, and a great 
philosopher. It seems fitting, therefore, at this time of 
the celebration of the Bimillennium Vergilianum, to bring 
together the poems or the parts of poems which his English- 
speaking followers have written under his spell, paying di¬ 
rect tribute to the poet or to his work. The very numerous 
translations, imitations, and paraphrases of his poetry have 
been omitted, as well as the still more numerous echoes of 
Vergilian thought and imagery and diction. I have dis¬ 
cussed and listed these elsewhere;* the inclusion of them 
here would have made far too bulky a volume. 

The poems have been grouped under five main headings: 
Vergil the poet, Vergil the magician, the Eneid , the Georgies , 
and the Eclogues. Thus comparisons and contrasts may be 
made between those who have so variously expressed their 
admiration of Vergil, and between those who have, as 
Chaucer says, “followed his lantern,” in retelling the story 
of the Eneid , in whole or in part, or in taking a suggestion 
for a poem from an incident, a character, a line, or a phrase 
in the Eneid , the Georgies , or the Eclogues. Strange comrades 

* Vergil and the English Poets, N. Y., Columbia University Press, 1919. The 
Appendix contains a list of translations, imitations, parodies, and burlesques, chron¬ 
ologically arranged. 

v 


VI 


Preface 


in laudation they are, some of them,—Tennyson with his 
understanding of the full significance of Vergil’s poetry, 
Thomson with his cold welcome to the Mantuan swain, old 
Gavin Douglas with his winsome extravagance in praise 
of the peerless pearl, the chosen carbuncle of poetry; or 
Chaucer with his romantic tale of “sely Dido” rashly trust¬ 
ing to man’s faith, and Virginia McCormick with her mix¬ 
ture of classic tale and modern instance accompanied by 
the blowing of mediaeval trumpets. But every one of them, 
including the journalist who puts the JEneid in a nutshell 
for modern readers, is saying, “Glory and honour, Virgil 
Mantuan!” 

If the material in this anthology were arranged chrono¬ 
logically, several interesting points in connection with the 
history of Vergilian influence and tradition would be mani¬ 
fest. The Middle Ages were quite uncritical in their atti¬ 
tude toward Vergil. He was to them mainly two things: a 
mighty magician and a great romancer. Dido is the type 
of the deserted woman, the martyr of Love; iEneas, of the 
false lover. This conception of the character of Dido is 
maintained to some degree in the period of the English 
Renaissance, when the Carthaginian queen, whose other 
name, Elissa, becomes Eliza in honor of England’s queen, 
is made the heroine of several plays. But at this time the 
dramatic appeal of the rest of the story of the JEneid is also 
very strong, especially that of the last hours of Troy and of 
the death of Priam. Particularly interesting is the empha¬ 
sis, born of the mighty patriotism of the age of Elizabeth 
and the defeat of the Spanish Armada, placed by poets 
like Spenser and Drayton upon the story of Tmeas, the an¬ 
cestor of Brute, the founder of the British people. In the 
main, the neoclassic interest in Vergil rather naturally nar¬ 
rows to an admiration of the perfection of the form of his 
poetry. The JEneid is the model for epic poetry, the Eclogues 
for the pastoral. Pope pays tribute to “the patient touches 
of unwearied art.” This anthology does not, however, rep¬ 
resent fairly the importance of Vergilian influence in the 
neoclassic period, for it was shown largely in the transla- 



Preface 


vn 


tions, paraphrases, and imitations of the VEneid and the 
Eclogues. There was scarcely a poet of that period who did 
not evince a debt to Vergil. In the eighteenth century, the 
love of didactic poetry and the renewed interest in nature 
both turned the attention of the forerunners of the Romantic 
Movement to the Georgies , which had been largely neglected 
during the centuries before. Thomson and Philips are only 
two of the many poets who show the influence of him who 
sings of “wheat and woodland, tilth and vineyard, hive and 
horse and herd.” Thus each period has added something 
to the appreciation of Vergil, until, in the nineteenth and 
twentieth centuries, that appreciation has grown to pro¬ 
portions adequate to his genius. For our poets of modern 
times have recognized not only the greatness of his narrative 
power, not only the structural perfection of his poems, not 
only his love of nature. They have appreciated the purity 
and strength of his national spirit, the skill of his technique, 
the exquisite beauty and majesty of his verse, the depth of 
his understanding of human nature, the universality of his 
thought and his philosophy. Thus Vergil has gradually 
come into his own. From the magician and the romancer 
he has become the great poet of Rome and of Italy, and one 
of the great poets of all the human race. 

For permission to print acknowledgment is made as 
follows: to Longmans, Green and Company for G. L. Bick- 
ersteth’s translation of Carducci’s Virgil; to Macmillan 
and Company, Ltd., for the lines from Virgilium Vidi; to 
Joseph M. Beatty, Jr., for Virgil , 1930; to D. A. Slater for 
L'Eneide de Nos Jours; to Virginia McCormick for Dido; to 
William Ellery Leonard and the Viking Press for Scholasticus 
and The Dawn; to Babette Deutsch for Lacrimae Rerum; to 
the London Mercury for Circe and VEneas; to John H. Finley 
for Virgil's First Eclogue Remembered. 

Elizabeth Nitchie 


January , 1930 






■X 
















CONTENTS 

PREFACE . 


VERGIL THE POET 


To Virgil. 

Tennyson .... 

3 

From The Proloug of the First 
Buik of Eneados. 

Douglas .... 

5 

From The Poetaster. 

Jonson .... 

7 

From The Fall of Princes . . 

Lydgate .... 

11 

From The Motto. 

Cowley .... 

12 

From The Seasons: Winter . . 

Thomson .... 

13 

From Heine’s Grave. 

Arnold .... 

14 

From The Temple of Fame . . 

Pope . 

15 

From Memorials of a Tour in 
Italy. 

Wordsworth . . . 

16 

From Ode to Apollo .... 

Keats . 

17 

Poets and Their Bibliographies . 

Tennyson .... 

18 

Concerning Virgils Eneids . . 

Grimald .... 

19 

From A Vision of Poets . . . . 

E . B . Browning . . 

20 

From Virgilium Vidi. 

T . H . Warren . . 

21 

Virgil, 1930. 

Joseph M . Beatty , Jr . 

23 

VERGIL THE MAGICIAN 

From The Seven Sages of Rome 


27 

From Confessio Amantis .... 

Gower . 

29 

From The Tragical History of 
Doctor Faustus. 

Marlowe .... 

30 

THE 7 ENEID 

I. The Fortunes of ./Eneas 

From The Hous of Fame . . . 

Chaucer .... 

33 

From The Faerie Queene . . . 

Spenser .... 

40 

From The Palige of Honour . . 

Douglas .... 

42 

From Poly-Olbion. 

Drayton .... 

43 


IX 
















X 


Contents 


The Classics in a Nutshell.44 

L’Lneide de Nos Jours . . D. A. Slater .... 45 

II. Dido 

Dido. Virginia McCormick . . 49 

From The Legend of Good 

Women . Chaucer .50 

From Confessio Amantis . . Gower .63 

From The Fall of Princes . Lydgate .65 

From The Tragedie of Dido, 

Queene of Carthage . . Marlowe and Nashe . . 66 

From The Heart Fled 

Again. Cowley .67 

Scholasticus. William Ellery Leonard . 68 

III. The Fall of Troy 

From Hamlet. Shakespeare .71 

From The Tale of Troy . Peele .74 

From The Iron Age . . . Heywood . 77 

IV. Echoes of the Mantuan Song 

From The Hous of Fame . Chaucer .81 

From Hudibras. Butler .83 

Laodamia. Wordsworth .84 

The Song of Iopas, Unfin¬ 
ished . Wyatt .90 

Lacrimae Rerum .... Babette Deutsch .... 93 

Circe and vEneas .... John Swinnerton Phillimore 94 


THE GEORGICS 

From Cyder . Philips . 97 

Pan and Luna . Browning . 98 

The Country Life . . . Herrick . 102 

From The Daisy .... Tennyson . 105 


THE ECLOGUES 

Virgil’s First Eclogue Re¬ 


membered . John Finley . 109 

The Dawn . William Ellery Leonard . 113 





























VERGIL THE POET 


The chastest poet and royalest , Virgilius Maro, that to the 
memory of man is known. 


— Francis Bacon 












TO VIRGIL 

Written at the request of the Mantuans 
for the nineteenth centenary of 
Virgil’s death 

I 

Roman Virgil, thou that singest 
Ilion’s lofty temples robed in fire, 

Ilion falling, Rome arising, 
wars, and filial faith, and Dido’s pyre; 

ii 

Landscape-lover, lord of language 

more than he that sang the Works and Days, 

All the chosen coin of fancy 

flashing out from many a golden phrase; 

hi 

Thou that singest wheat and woodland, 

tilth and vineyard, hive and horse and herd; 

All the charm of all the Muses 
often flowering in a lonely word; 

IV 

Poet of the happy Tityrus 
piping underneath his beechen bowers; 

Poet of the poet-satyr 

whom the laughing shepherd bound with flowers; 

v 

Chanter of the Pollio, glorying 
in the blissful years again to be, 

Summers of the snakeless meadow, 
unlaborious earth and oarless sea; 

3 


4 


Master Vergil 


VI 

Thou that seest Universal 

Nature moved by Universal Mind; 

Thou majestic in thy sadness 

at the doubtful doom of human kind; 

VII 

Light among the vanish’d ages; 

star that gildest yet this phantom shore; 

Golden branch amid the shadows, 

kings and realms that pass to rise no more; 

VIII 

Now thy Forum roars no longer, 
fallen every purple Caesar’s dome — 

Tho’ thine ocean-roll of rhythm 
sound for ever of Imperial Rome — 

IX 

Now the Rome of slaves hath perish’d, 
and the Rome of freemen holds her place, 

I, from out the Northern Island 

sunder’d once from all the human race, 

x 

I salute thee, Mantovano, 

I that loved thee since my day began, 

Wielder of the stateliest measure 
ever moulded by the lips of man. 

— Alfred , Lord Tennyson [1809-1892] 




Master Vergil 


5 


From THE PROLOUG OF THE 
FIRST BUIK OF ENEADOS 


Laude, honor, prasingis, thankis infynite 
To the, and thi dulce ornate fresch endite, 1 
Mast reuerend Virgill, of Latyne poetis prince, 
Gemme of ingine and fluide of eloquence, 

Thow peirles perle, patroun of poetrie, 

Rois, register, palme, laurer 2 and glory, 

Chosin cherbukle, 3 cheif flour and cedir tree, 
Lanterne, leidsterne, 4 5 mirrour, and a per sep 
Master of masteris, sweit sours 6 and springand well, 
Wyde quhar our 7 all ringis thi hevinle bell; 

I mene thi crafty werkis curious, 

Sa quik, lusty, and mast sentencious, 

Plesable, perfyte, and felable 8 in all degre, 

As quha the mater held to foir thar ee; 9 
In euery volume quhilk the list 10 do 11 write, 
Surmonting fer all wther maneir endite, 

Lyk as the rois in June with hir sueit smell 
The marygulde or dasy doith excell. 


Nane is, nor was, nor 3it sal be, trow I, 

Had, has, or sal have sic crafte in poetrie. 

Of Helicon so drank thou dry the fluid 
That of the copiose flowith or plenitud, 

All man purches drink at thi sugarat tone, 

So lamp of day thou art, and shynand mone, 

All wtheris on force mon their lycht beg or borow. 
Thou art Vesper, and the day sterne 12 at morow; 


1 writing 6 source 10 desired 

2 laurel 7 over 11 to 

3 carbuncle 8 intelligible 12 star 

4 load-star 9 As one who held the matter before the eye 

5 an extraordinary person, like the letter A by itself, which has the first place in 

every alphabet 



6 


Master Vergil 


Thou Phebus lychtnar of the planetis all, 

I not 1 quhat dewlie I the clepe sail, 

For thou art al and sum, quhat nedis moir, 

Of Latyne poetis that sens wes or befoir. 

— Gavin Douglas [i 474 ? -I 5 22 ] 



Master Vergil 


7 


From THE POETASTER 

[Act Five , Scene One ] 

Eques. Virgil is now at hand, imperial Cassar. 

Caesar. Rome’s honour is at hand then. Fetch a chair, 
And set it on our right hand, where ’tis fit 
Rome’s honour and our own should ever sit. 

Now he is come out of Campania, 

I doubt not he hath finish’d all his iEneids. 

Which, like another soul, I long to enjoy. 

What think you three of Virgil, gentlemen, 

That are of his profession, though rank’d higher; 

* * * * 

Say then, loved Horace, thy true thought of Virgil. 

Horace. I judge him of a rectified spirit, 

By many revolutions of discourse, 

(In his bright reason’s influence,) refined 
From all the tartarous moods of common men; 

Bearing the nature and similitude 
Of a right heavenly body; most severe 
In fashion and collection of himself; 

And, then, as clear and confident as Jove. 

Gallus. And yet so chaste and tender is his ear, 

In suffering any syllable to pass, 

That he thinks may become the honour’d name 
Of issue to his so examined self, 

That all the lasting fruits of his full merit, 

In his own poems, he doth still distaste; 

As if his mind’s piece, which he strove to paint, 

Could not with fleshly pencils have her right. 

Tibullus. But to approve his works of sovereign worth, 
This observation, methinks, more than serves, 

And is not vulgar. That which he hath writ 
Is with such judgment labour’d, and distill’d 
Through all the needful uses of our lives, 



8 


Master Vergil 


That could a man remember but his lines, 

He should not touch at any serious point, 

But he might breathe his spirit out of him. 

Caes. You mean, he might repeat part of his works, 
As fit for any conference he can use? 

Tib. True, royal Caesar. 

Caes. Worthily observed; 

And a most worthy virtue in his works. 

What thinks material Horace of his learning? 

Hor. His learning savours not the school-like gloss, 
That most consists in echoing words and terms, 

And soonest wins a man an empty name; 

Nor any long or far-fetch’d circumstance 
Wrapp’d in the curious general ties of arts; 

But a direct and analytic sum 

Of all the worth and first effects of arts. 

And for his poesy, ’tis so ramm’d with life, 

That it shall gather strength of life, with being, 

And live hereafter more admired than now. 

Caes. This one consent in all your dooms of him, 
And mutual loves of all your several merits, 

Argues a truth of merit in you all. — 

Enter Virgil 

See, here comes Virgil; we will rise and greet him. 
Welcome to Caesar, Virgil! Caesar and Virgil 
Shall differ but in sound; to Caesar, Virgil, 

Of his expressed greatness, shall be made 
A second sirname, and to Virgil, Caesar. 

Where are thy famous iEneids? do us grace 
To let us see, and surfeit on their sight. 

Virgil. Worthless they are of Caesar’s gracious eyes, 
If they were perfect; much more with their wants, 
Which are yet more than my time could supply. 

And, could great Caesar’s expectation 
Be satisfied with any other service, 

I would not shew them. 

Caes. Virgil is too modest; 




Master Vergil 


9 


Or seeks, in vain, to make our longings more: 

Shew them, sweet Virgil. 

Virg. Then, in such due fear 
As fits presenters of great works to Caesar, 

I humbly shew them. 

Caes. Let us now behold 
A human soul made visible in life; 

And more refulgent in a senseless paper 
Than in the sensual complement of kings. 

Read, read thyself, dear Virgil; let not me 
Profane one accent with an untuned tongue. 

* * * * 

Gentlemen of our chamber, guard the doors, 

And let none enter; peace. Begin, good Virgil. 

Virg. ‘Meanwhile the skies ’gan thunder, and in tail 
Of that, fell pouring storms of sleet and hail: 

The Tyrian lords and Trojan youth, each where 
With Venus 5 Dardane nephew, now, in fear, 

Seek out for several shelter through the plain, 

Whilst floods come rolling from the hills amain. 

Dido a cave, the Trojan prince the same 
Lighted upon. There earth and heaven’s great dame, 
That hath the charge of marriage, first gave sign 
Upon this contract; fire and air did shine, 

As guilty of the match; and from the hill 
The nymphs with shriekings do the region fill. 

Here first began their bane; this day was ground 
Of all their ills; for now, nor rumour’s sound, 

Nor nice respect of state, moves Dido ought; 

Her love no longer now by stealth is sought: 

She calls this wedlock, and with that fair name 
Covers her fault. Forthwith the bruit and fame, 
Through all the greatest Lybian towns is gone; 

Fame, a fleet evil, than which is swifter none, 

That moving grows, and flying gathers strength; 

Little at first, and fearful; but at length 
She dares attempt the skies, and stalking proud 



IO 


Master Vergil 


With feet on ground, her head doth pierce a cloud! 
This child, our parent earth, stirr’d up with spite 
Of all the gods, brought forth; and, as some write, 

She was last sister of that giant race 

That thought to scale Jove’s court; right swift of pace, 

And swifter far of wing; a monster vast, 

And dreadful. Look, how many plumes are placed 
On her huge corps, so many waking eyes 
Stick underneath; and, which may stranger rise 
In the report, as many tongues she bears, 

As many mouths, as many listening ears. 

Nightly, in midst of all the heaven, she flies, 

And through the earth’s dark shadow shrieking cries; 
Nor do her eyes once bend to taste sweet sleep; 

By day on tops of houses she doth keep, 

Or on high towers; and doth thence affright 
Cities and towns of most conspicuous site: 

As covetous she is of tales and lies, 

As prodigal of truth.’ 


— Ben Jonson [1573-1637] 



Master Vergil 


11 


From THE FALL OF PRINCES 

[Book IV, ll. 64-gi] 

W RITYNG caused poetis to recure 1 
A name eternal, the laurer 2 whan thei wan, 

In adamaunt graue perpetuelli tendure. 3 
Record I take of Virgile Mantuan, 

That wrot the armys & prowesse of the man 
Callid Eneas, whan he of hih corage 
Cam to Itaill from Dido of Cartage. 

Thre famous bookis this auctour list compile, 
Eneidoys first; which that dide excell 
In rethorik be souereynte of stile. 

He drank swich plente, this poete, as men tell, 

Of the stremys that ran doun fro the well 
Wrouhte bi tho sustres that be in noumbre nyne, 
Prowesse of knihthod most cleerli to termyne. 4 

For in that book he caste nat to faill, 

With vois mellodious for to descryue ariht 
The grete conquest of Rome & of Itaill 
Wrouht bi Enee, the manli Troian kniht. 

Whos vers notable yif so cleer a liht 
Thoruh al thi worlde, as in rethorik, 

That among poetis was non onto hym lik. 

He wrot also, this poete with his hond 
Bi humble stile othir bookis tweyne, 

Oon of pasture, the nexte of tilthe of lond, 

The vers conveied with feet of metris pleyne. 

Bi which thre labours a palme he did atteyne, 

To make his name throuh dites 5 delitable 
Aboue poetis to be most comendable. 

— John Lydgate [c. 1370-r. 1451] 


1 gain again 


2 laurel 


3 to endure 


4 determine 


5 writings 



12 


Master Vergil 


From THE MOTTO 

Come my best Friends , my Books , and lead me on; 

’Tis time that I were gon. 

Welcome, great Stagirite , and teach me now 
All I was born to know. 

Thy Scholars victories thou dost far out-do; 

He conquer’d th’ Earth , the whole World you. 
Welcome learn’d Cicero , whose blest Tongue and Wit 
Preserves Romes greatness yet. 

Thou art the first of Orators; only he 

Who best can praise Thee , next must be. 

Welcome the Mantuan Swan , Virgil the Wise, 

Whose verse walks highest , but not flies. 

Who brought green Poesie to her perfect Age; 

And made that Art which was a Rage. 

— Abraham Cowley [1618-1667] 



Master Vergil 


1 3 


From THE SEASONS: WINTER 

There studious let me sit, 

And hold high converse with the mighty dead — 
Sages of ancient time, as gods revered, 

As gods beneficent, who blessed mankind 
With arts and arms, and humanized a world. 
Roused at the inspiring thought, I throw aside 
The long-lived volume, and deep-musing hail 
The sacred shades that slowly rising pass 
Before my wondering eyes. 

* * * * 

Behold who yonder comes! in sober state, 

Fair, mild, and strong as is a vernal sun: 

’Tis Phoebus’ self, or else the Mantuan swain! 


— James Thomson [1700-1748] 



Master Vergil 


From HEINE’S GRAVE 

Ah, I knew that I saw 
Here no sepulchre built 
In the laurell’d rock, o’er the blue 
Naples bay, for a sweet 
Tender Virgil! 

— Matthew Arnold [1822-1888] 



Master Vergil 


15 


From THE TEMPLE OF FAME 

[ii. 196-209] 

A GOLDEN column next in rank appear’d 
On which a shrine of purest gold was rear’d; 
Finish’d the whole, and labour’d ev’ry part, 

With patient touches of unwearied art. 

The Mantuan there in sober triumph sate, 
Composed his posture, and his look sedate; 

On Homer still he fix’d a rev’rend eye, 

Great without pride, in modest majesty. 

In living sculpture on the sides were spread 
The Latian wars, and haughty Turnus dead; 

Eliza stretch’d upon the funeral pyre; 
iEneas bending with his aged sire: 

Troy flamed in burning gold, and o’er the throne 
‘Arms and the man’ in golden ciphers shone. 


— Alexander Pope [1688-1744] 



i6 


Master Vergil 


From MEMORIALS OF A TOUR 
IN ITALY, 1837 

[/, 11.263-269 .] 

Or let me loiter, soothed with what is given 
Nor asking more, on that delicious Bay, 
Parthenope’s Domain — Virgilian haunt, 
Illustrated with never-dying verse, 

And, by the Poet’s laurel-shaded tomb, 

Age after age to Pilgrims from all lands 
Endeared. 


— William Wordsworth [1770-1850] 



Master Vergil 


1 7 


From ODE TO APOLLO 

Then, through thy Temple wide, melodious swells 
The sweet majestic tone of Maro’s lyre: 

The soul delighted on each accent dwells, — 

Enraptur’d dwells, — not daring to respire, 

The while he tells of grief around a funeral pyre. 

— John Keats [1795-1821] 



i8 


Master Vergil 


POETS AND THEIR BIBLIOG¬ 
RAPHIES 

Old poets foster’d under friendlier skies, 

Old Virgil who would write ten lines, they say, 

At dawn, and lavish all the golden day 
To make them wealthier in his readers’ eyes; 

And you, old popular Horace, you the wise 
Adviser of the nine-years-ponder’d lay; 

And you, that wear a wreath of sweeter bay, 
Catullus whose dead songster never dies; 

If, glancing downward on the kindly sphere 

That once had roll’d you round and round the Sun, 
You see your Art still shrined in human shelves, 

You should be jubilant that you flourish’d here 
Before the Love of Letters, overdone, 

Had swampt the sacred poets with themselves. 

— Alfred , Lord Tennyson [1809-1892] 




Master Vergil 


l 9 


CONCERNING VIRGILS ENEIDS* 

By heauens hye gift, incase reuiued were 
Lysip, Apelles, and Homer the great: 

The most renowmd, and ech of them sance pere, 

In grauing, paintyng, and the Poets feat; 

Yet could they not, for all their vein diuine, 

In marble, table, paper more, or lesse, 

With cheezil, pencil, or with poyntel fyne, 

So graue, so paynt, or so by style expresse 
(Though they beheld of euery age, and land 
The fayrest books, in euery toung contriued, 

To frame a fourm, and to direct their hand) 

Of noble prince the liuely shape descriued: 

As, in the famous woork, that Eneids hight, 

The naamkouth 1 Virgil hath set forth in sight. 

— Nicholas Grimald [1519-1562] 


1 famous 


* From Tottel's Miscellany, Songes and Sonnettes, 1557 (see edition by Edward Arber, 
in “English Reprints,” Constable and Company, Ltd., London, 1921). 




20 


Master Vergil 


From A VISION OF POETS 

God’S prophets of the Beautiful 
These poets were; of iron rule, 

The rugged cilix, serge of wool. 

* * * * 

And Virgil: shade of Mantuan beech 
Did help the shade of bay to reach 

And knit around his forehead high: 

For his gods wore less majesty 

Than his brown bees hummed deathlessly. 

— Elizabeth Barrett Browning [i 806-1861] 




Master Vergil 


21 


From VIRGILIUM VIDI * 

To Alfred , Lord Tennyson 

Lord in this land and lord in many lands, 
However far may reach 
The myriad labour of our English hands, 

Our always-widening speech, 

* * * * 

Now when the singing and the springing time 

Makes bolder every heart, 

Take, king of verse, the tribute of a rhyme, 

Albeit of little art, 

From one who prizes more than words can say, 

As life and cares grow long, 

What charmed with simpler spell his boyhood’s day — 
The magic of your song, 

* * * * 

And counts him thrice and four times fortunate 

To have found such signal grace 
Of welcome bidding pass the sacred gate, 

And entering, face to face 
To have seen the Virgil of our time, and heard 
More musical than song, 

The rolling cadence of the poet’s word 
In accents true and strong, 

Grandly reverberant with a nation’s wail 
Above the warrior’s grave, 

Or softly calling to the silver sail 
Across the moonlit wave, 

In such a moving voice as that which made 
The imperial mother swoon 
With sweet and sharp of sorrow, when it bade 
The purple flowers be strewn, 

* From Macmillan's Magazine, Vol. LXVII, pp. 478-480, April, 1893. 



22 


Master Vergil 


And lavish lilies heaped upon the head 
Withdrawn as soon as shown, 

Rome’s idle honour to a spirit fled 
Too pure to be her own; 

Or sang how piled beneath Misenus’ hill 
The trumpet and the oar . 

Signed the dumb ghost whose living lips had skill 
To light the blaze of war; 

The very voice of beauty and of art 
Where yet so strangely ring 
Those under-notes of tears that are a part 
Of every mortal thing. 

Dust is the singer, but the song endures, 

Making the old tongue of Rome, 

Though dead, to speak; and even so shall yours 
O’er-leap the bounds of home. 

* * * * 


— T. H. Warren 



Master Vergil 


2 3 


VIRGIL, 1930 

Once more, exultant legions proudly stand 
At steep Trentino’s borders, and once more 
A Caesar rules supreme from shore to shore 
His loyal race obedient to command; 

In peasant cottages on every hand 
Hearths burn with sloth-consuming patriot fire, 
While high on wings imperial of desire 
The Roman eagle guards his native land. 

Virgil, awake from bimillennial sleep! 

Once Roman, now the world’s, your poet-voice 
Can sing triumphant harmonies sublime 
In praise of far-flung peace; upwelling, deep, 

A paean that will make the folk rejoice 
In realms yet unrevealed by looming time. 

— Joseph M. Beatty , Jr. 













VERGIL THE MAGICIAN 


. . . many marvayles , that he dyd in his lyfe 
tyme by witchcraft and nigromansy , thorough 
the help of the devylls of hell. 


John Doesborcke 



From THE SEVEN SAGES OF 
ROME 

[Story IX, Virgilius, 11 . 2159-2214 ] 

‘Syr ,’ sho said, ‘pare * was whilome 
A clerk, hight Virgil, here in Rome. 

Wele was he knawen omang clergi, 

And mekil he cowth of nigromancy. 

He made a fire by experiment 
In middes Rome, on pe pauement. 

It brined 1 bath by day and night, 
pat no man it stanche might; 

With water ne with nonekins thing 
No man myght it out bring, 
pe pouer folk of pe cuntre 
Drogh 2 ful fast to pe cete 
At 3 warm pam bath fote and hand. 

For pe fire was ay brinand. 

Opon a toure pare of pe toun 
Virgil made an ymage of latoun; 4 
A bow pe ymage held in hand, 

And in pe bow ane arow taisand. 5 

‘In pe vesage 6 als, on brede, 7 
Was wreten pus, pat men might rede: 
“Whoso smytes me, knight or swain, 

Sone I sal smyte him ogayn.” 

So it bifell, opon a day, 

pare come a Lumbard him to play; 

He saw pe image with bow bent, 

And to pe lettres toke he tent. 8 
pai said: “If ani man me smyte, 

I sal shote at him ful tite.” 9 

1 burned 3 to 6 poised 7 legibly 9 quickly 

2 drew 4 brass 6 face 8 attention 

* = th; 3 = y. 

27 



28 


Master Vergil 


pe Lumbard was iolif and stowt, 

And said vntil his men obowt: 

“Wil 3e * J>is man asaid 1 be?” 

And pai said: “5 a, pat wald we se.” 

He shot at pe ymage with a vire, 2 
And sone it torned al into pat fire 
pat was made in middes pe way; 
pan slokkend it for euer and ay. 

Sir, pis was na wise kownsail. 

Bot 3 it par was a more meruail. 

‘Virgil on pe est wal of pe town 
Made anoper image of latown, 

And in his hand a ful faire ball; 

And als he set on pe west wall 
Of fine laton anoper ymage, 

Like two breper of vesage. 

Ful many men it saw, and sayd 
pat with pe ball pe childer plaide; 
pe tane it kest, 3 pat oper it hent; 4 
pis was a quaintise, verrayment. 

In myddes Rome Virgil made a stage, 

And pare he set anoper ymage; 

A merure had he in his hand, 
pat pai of Rome myght se ilk land 
pat seuin daies iornay obout pam ere, 

Who wald pam pese and who wald were. 5 
pus war pai warned ilka day 
Whan any fase 6 wald pam affray.’ f 

1 tested 2 crossbow bolt 3 threw 4 caught 

6 Who wished them peace and who wished war 6 foes 


* 1> = th; 3 = y. 

f See The Seven Sages of Rome, edited from the manuscripts ... by Killis Camp¬ 
bell (Ginn and Company, 1907). The authorship of this version is unknown. The 
date is probably not later than the middle of the fourteenth century, though the manu¬ 
script (Cotton Galba E. ix), is in an early fifteenth-century hand. 




Master Vergil 


29 


From CONFESSIO AMANTIS 

[Book V , 11. 2031-2045 ] 

Whan Rome stod in noble plit, 

Virgile, which was tho parfit, 

A Mirour made of his clergie 
And sette it in the tounes ye 
Of marbre on a piler withoute; 

That thei be thritty Mile aboute 
Be daie and ek also be nyhte 
In that Mirour beholde myhte 
Here enemys, if eny were, 

With al here ordinance there, 

Which thei ayein 1 the Cite caste: 

So that, whil thilke Mirour laste, 

Ther was no lond which mihte achieve 
With werre Rome forto grieve; 

Wherof was gret envie tho. 

— John Gower [d. 1408] 


x against 



3 ° 


Master Vergil 


From THE TRAGICAL HISTORY 
OF DOCTOR FAUSTUS 

Faust. Having now, my good Mephistophiles, 
Passed with delight the stately town of Trier, 

* * * * 

Then up to Naples, rich Campania, 

Whose buildings fair and gorgeous to the eye 

The streets straight forth, and paved with finest brick, 

Quarter the town in four equivalents: 

There saw we learned Maro’s golden tomb, 

The way he cut, an English mile in length, 

Thorough a rock of stone in one night’s space. 

— Christopher Marlowe [ 1564 - 1593 ] 



THE iENEID 


I. THE FORTUNES OF AENEAS 

Ther saugh I stonde on a pileer 
That was of tinnedyren cleer , 

That Latin poete , dan Virgyle , 

That bore hath up a longe whyle 
The fame of Pius Eneas. 

— Geoffrey Chaucer 





From THE HOUS OF FAME 

[Book I, ll. i 4 off.-] 

But as I romed up and doun, 

I fond that on a wal ther was 
Thus writen, on a table of bras: 

T wol now singe, if that I can, 

The armes, and al-so the man, 

That first cam, through his destinee, 

Fugitif of Troye contree, 

In Itaile, with ful moche pyne, 

Unto the strondes of Lavyne.’ 

And tho began the story anoon, 

As I shal telle yow echoon . 1 

First saw I the destruccioun 
Of Troye, through the Grek Synoun, 

With his false forsweringe, 

And his chere and his lesinge 2 
Made the hors broght into Troye, 

Thorgh which Troyens loste al her Ioye. 

And after this was grave, alias! 

How Ilioun assailed was 

And wonne, and king Priam y-slayn, 

And Polites his sone, certayn, 

Dispitously of dan Pirrus. 

And next that saw I how Venus, 

Whan that she saw the castel brende, 

Doun fro the heven gan descende, 

And bad hir sone Eneas flee; 

And how he fled, and how that he 
Escaped was from al the pres, 

And took his fader, Anchises, 

And bar him on his bakke away, 

Cryinge, ‘Allas, and welaway!’ 

1 each one 2 lying 


33 


34 


Master Vergil 


The whiche Anchises in his honde 
Bar the goddes of the londe, 

Thilke that unbrenned were. 

And I saw next, in alle his fere, 

How Creusa, dan Eneas wyf, 

Which that he loved as his lyf, 

And hir yonge sone Iulo 
And eek Ascanius also, 

Fledden eek with drery chere, 

That hit was pitee for to here; 

And in a forest, as they wente, 

At a turning of a wente, 1 
How Creusa was y-lost, alias! 

That deed, [but] not 2 I how, she was; 
How he hir soughte, and how hir gost 
Bad him to flee the Grekes ost, 

And seyde, he moste unto Itaile, 

As was his destiny, sauns faille; 

That hit was pitee for to here, 

Whan hir spirit gan appere, 

The wordes that she to him seyde, 

And for to kepe hir sone him preyde. 
Ther saw I graven eek how he, 

His fader eek, and his meynee, 3 
With his shippes gan to sayle 
Towardes the contree of Itaile, 

As streight as that they mighte go. 

Ther saw I thee, cruel Iuno, 

That art dan Iupiteres wyf, 

That hast y-hated, al thy lyf, 

A1 the Troyanisshe blood, 

Renne and crye, as thou were wood, 4 
On Eolus, the god of wyndes, 

To blowen out, of alle kyndes, 

So loude, that he shulde drenche 
Lord and lady, grome and wenche 


1 way 

1 do not know 


3 company 

4 mad 



Master Vergil 


35 


Of al the Troyan nacioun, 

Withoute any savacioun. 

Ther saw I swich tempeste aryse, 
That every herte mighte agryse, 1 
To see hit peynted on the walle. 

Ther saw I graven eek withalle, 
Venus, how ye, my lady dere, 
Wepinge with ful woful chere, 

Prayen Iupiter an hye 
To save and kepe that navye 
Of the Troyan Eneas, 

Sith that he hir sone was. 

Ther saw I loves Venus kisse, 

And graunted of the tempest lisse. 
Ther saw I how the tempest stente, 
And how with alle pyne he wente, 
And prevely took arrivage 
In the contree of Cartage; 

And on the morwe, how that he 
And a knight, hight Achate, 

Metten with Venus that day, 

Goinge in a queynt array, 

As she had ben an hunteresse, 

With wynd blowinge upon hir tresse; 
How Eneas gan him to pleyne, 

Whan that he knew hir, of his peyne; 
And how his shippes dreynte were, 
Or elles lost, he niste 2 where; 

How she gan him comforte tho, 

And bad him to Cartage go, 

And ther he shulde his folk fynde, 
That in the see were left behynde. 

And, shortly of this thing to pace, 
She made Eneas so in grace 
Of Dido, quene of that contree, 

That, shortly for to tellen, she 


1 terrify 


2 knew not 



3 6 


Master Vergil 


Becam his love, and leet him do 
That that wedding longeth to. 

* * * * 

Ther saw I grave, how Eneas 
Tolde Dido every cas, 

That him was tid upon the see. 

And after grave was, how she 
Made of him, shortly, at oo word, 

Hir lyf, hir love, hir lust, hir lord; 

And did him al the reverence, 

And leyde on him al the dispence. 
That any woman mighte do, 

Weninge hit had al be so, 

As he hir swoor; and her-by demed 
That he was good, for he swich semed. 
Allas! what harm doth apparence, 
Whan hit is fals in existence! 

For he to hir a traitour was; 

Wherfor she slow hir-self, alias! 

* * * * 

But let us speke of Eneas, 

How he betrayed hir, alias! 

And lefte hir ful unkyndely. 

So whan she saw al-utterly, 

That he wolde hir of trouthe faile, 

And wende fro hir to Itaile, 

She gan to wringe hir hondes two. 

‘Allas!’ quod she, ‘what me is wo! 
Allas! is every man thus trewe, 

That every yere wolde have a newe, 

If hit so longe tyme dure, 

Or elles three, peraventure? 

As thus: of oon he wolde have fame 
In magnifying of his name; 

Another for frendship, seith he; 

And yet ther shal the thridde be, 



Master Vergil 


37 


That shal be taken for delyte, 

Lo, or for singular profyte. 5 

In swiche wordes gan to pleyne 
Dido of hir grete peyne, 

As me mette 1 redely; 

Non other auctour alegge I. 

‘Allas! 5 quod she, ‘my swete herte, 
Have pitee on my sorwes smerte, 

And slee me not! go noght away! 

O woful Dido, wel-away! 5 
Quod she to hir-selve tho. 

* * * * 

‘O, welaway that I was born! 

For through yow is my name lorn, 
And al myn actes red and songe 
Over al this lond, on every tonge. 

O wikke Fame! for ther nis 2 
Nothing so swift, lo, as she is! 

O, soth is, every thing is wist, 
Though hit be kevered with the mist. 
Eek, thogh I mighte duren ever, 

That I have doon, rekever I never, 
That I ne shal be seyd, alias, 
Y-shamed be through Eneas, 

And that I shal thus Iuged be — 
cc Lo, right as she hath doon, now she 
Wol do eftsones, hardily; 55 
Thus seyth the peple prevely. 5 — 

But that is doon, nis not to done; 

Al hir compleynt ne al hir mone, 
Certeyn, availeth hir not a stre. 3 

And whan she wiste sothly he 
Was forth unto his shippes goon, 

She in hir chambre wente anoon, 

And called on hir suster Anne, 

And gan hir to complayne thanne; 


1 I dreamed 


2 is not 


3 straw 



38 


Master Vergil 


And seyde, that she cause was 
That she first lovede [Eneas], 

And thus counselled hir therto. 

But what! when this was seyd and do, 

She roof hir-selve to the herte, 

And deyde through the wounde smerte. 

But al the maner how she deyde, 

And al the wordes that she seyde, 

Who-so to knowe hit hath purpos, 

Reed Virgile in Eneidos 
Or the Epistle of Ovyde, 

What that she wroot or that she dyde; 

And nere 1 hit to long to endyte, 

By God, I wolde hit here wryte. 

* * * * 

But to excusen Eneas 
Fulliche of al his greet trespas, 

The book seyth [how] Mercure, sauns faile, 
Bad him go into Itaile, 

And leve Auffrykes regioun. 

And Dido and hir faire toun. 

Tho saw I grave, how to Itaile 
Dan Eneas is go to saile; 

And how the tempest al began, 

And how he loste his steresman, 

Which that the stere, 2 or 3 he took keep, 
Smot over-bord, lo! as he sleep. 

And also saw I how Sibyle 
And Eneas, besyde an yle, 

To helle wente, for to see 
His fader, Anchises the free. 

How he ther fond Palinurus, 

And Dido, and eek Deiphebus; 

And every tourment eek in helle 
Saw he, which long is for to telle. 

Which who-so willeth for to knowe, 


were not 


2 helm 


3 before 



Master Vergil 


39 


He moste rede many a rowe 
On Virgile or on Claudian, 

Or Daunte, that hit telle can. 

Tho saw I grave al tharivaile 1 
That Eneas had in Itaile; 

And with king Latine his tretee, 

And alle the batailles that he 
Was at him-self, and eek his knightes, 

Or 2 he had al y-wonne his rightes; 

And how he Turnus refte his lyf, 

And wan Lavyna to his wyf; 

And al the mervelous signals 
Of the goddes celestials; 

How, maugre Iuno, Eneas, 

For al hir sleight and hir compas, 

Acheved al his aventure; 

For Iupiter took of him cure 
At the prayer of Venus; 

The whiche I preye alway save us, 

And us ay of our sorwes lighte! 

— Geoffrey Chaucer [1340?-1400] 


1 the arrival 


2 before 



4 o 


Master Vergil 


From THE FAERIE QUEENE 

[Book III , Canto IX\ 

‘Behold, Sir, how your pitifull complaint 
Hath fownd another partner of your payne; 

For nothing may impresse so deare constraint 
As countries cause, and commune foes disdayne. 

But if it should not grieve you backe agayne 
To turne your course, I would to heare desyre 
What to iEneas fell; sith that men sayne 
He was not in the cities wofull fyre 
Consum’d, but did him selfe to safety retyre.’ 

‘Anchyses sonne, begott of Venus fayre,’ 

Said he, c out of the flames for safegard fled, 

And with a remnant did to sea repayre; 

Where he through fatall errour long was led 
Full many yeares, and weetlesse wandered 
From shore to shore emongst the Lybick sandes, 

Ere rest he fownd. Much there he suffered, 

And many perilles past in forreine landes, 

To save his people sad from victours vengefull handes. 

‘At last in Latium he did arryve, 

Where he with cruell warre was entertaind 
Of th’ inland folke, which sought him backe to drive, 
Till he with old Latinus was constraind 
To contract wedlock, (so the fates ordaind) 

Wedlocke contract in blood, and eke in blood 
Accomplished, that many deare complaind: 

The rivall slaine, the victour, through the flood 
Escaped hardly, hardly praisd his wedlock good. 

‘Yet, after all, he victour did survive, 

And with Latinus did the kingdom part; 

But after, when both nations gan to strive 
Into their names the title to convart, 



Master Vergil 


41 


His son lulus did from thence depart 
With all the warlike youth of Trojans bloud, 
And in Long Alba plast his throne apart; 
Where faire it florished and long time stoud, 
Till Romulus, renewing it, to Rome remoud.’ 


— Edmund Spenser [c. 1552-1599] 



42 


Master Vergil 


From THE PALICE OF HONOUR 

SlNE out of Troy, I saw the fugitiues, 

How that Eneas as Virgill weill discriues, 

In countreis seir 1 was be the seyis rage 
Bewauit 2 oft, and how that he arriues 
With all his flote but danger of thair hues, 

And how thay war resset 3 baith man and page 
Be quene Dido remanand in Carthage; 

And how Eneas sine, as that thay tell, 

Went for to seik his father doun in hell. 

Ouir Stix the flude I saw Eneas fair, 

Quhair Charon was the busteous 4 ferriar, 

The fludes four of hell thair micht I se, 

The folk in pane, the wayis circulair, 

The welterand 5 stone wirk Sisipho mich cair, 

And all the plesance of the camp Elise, 6 
Quhair auld Anchises did commoun with Enee, 

And schew be line all his successioun, 

This ilk Eneas maist famous of renoun. 

I saw to goddes mak the sacrifice, 

Quhairof the ordour and maner to deuise 
War ouir prolixt, and how Eneas syne, 

Went to the schip, and eik I saw quhat wise, 

All his nauie greit hounger did surprise, 

How he in Italie finallie with greit pyne, 

Arryuit at the strandis of Lauyne, 

And how he faucht weill baith on landis and seyis, 
And Turnus slew the king of Rutileis. 

— Gavin Douglas [1474?-! 522] 


1 many 2 driven about 3 received 4 huge 6 rolling 6 Elysian Fields 



Master Vergil 


43 


From POLY—OLBION 

[Book J, 11 .319-336] 

When long-renowned Troy lay spent in hostile fire, 
And aged Priam's pomp did with her flames expire, 

JEneas (taking thence Ascanius , his young son, 

And his most rev’rend sire, the grave Anchises , won 
From shoals of slaughtering Greeks) set out from Simois 9 
shores; 

And through the Tyrrhene Sea, by strength of toiling oars, 
Raught Italy at last; where King Latinus lent 
Safe harbour for his ships, with wrackful tempests rent: 
When, in the Latin Court, Lavinia young and fair 
(Her father’s only child, and kingdom’s only heir) 

Upon the Troian lord her liking strongly plac’d, 

And languish’d in the fires that her fair breast imbrac’d: 
But Turnus (at that time) the proud Rutulian King, 

A suitor to the maid, JEneas malicing, 

By force of arms attempts his rival to extrude: 

But, by the Teucrian pow’r courageously subdu’d, 

Bright Cytherea's son the Latin crown obtain’d; 

And dying, in his stead his son Ascanius reign’d. 

— Michael Drayton [1563-1631] 



44 


Master Vergil 


THE CLASSICS IN A NUTSHELL* 

(modern reader’s library) 

VERG I US JENEID 

i 5 i>NEAS, with his little boy, 

Slid down the fire escape from Troy. 

His wife Creusa he forgot, 

Although he loved her quite a lot; 

She perished in the fire, poor dame! 

(He often thought of his old flame.) 

From Troy he sailed the raging tide, O! 

To Carthage, where he fell for Dido; 

Then left her cold and went to Hades, 

Came through, and married well, dear ladies. 

No one had ever thought him bad, 

So nice was he to his old dad. 


* From the column “Hit or Miss,” Daily News , Chicago, August 19 , I9t9* 



Master Vergil 


45 


L’ENEIDE DE NOS JOURS* 

By the leading of a star 
Came Aeneas from afar, 

Sailing up the promised stream 
To the kingdom of his dream. 

Dust was that which had been Troy; 

Dido’s death had murdered joy; 

By the blue Sicilian bay 
In his grave Anchises lay. 

Years had fled, but faithful still 
Flashed the star from hill to hill, 

Beck’ning to another home, 

Hov’ring o’er the site of Rome. 

Peace or battle — who should say? — 

In the lap of Fortune lay; 

Little recked he what befell, 

If he bore his burden well. 

So the pilgrimage he made 
To receive the accolade; 

So, the runes of Fate to spell, 

He descended into hell. 

Knightly sword and steadfast soul — 

Only these could gain the goal; 

Self might perish, — if the race 
Won and wore the pride of place. 

Thus the Mantuan said, and thus 
Says Aeneas unto us, 

Transubstantiating still 
Fickle heart and wayward will. 

— D. A. Slater 


* Reprinted by permission from Sortes Vergilianae or Vergil and Today, Oxford, Basil 
Blackwell, 1922. 







THE .ENEID 


II. DIDO 

Never was there such a whirlwind of passion 
as Virgil raised on those African shores , amid 
those rising citadels and departing sails. 

— Walter Savage Landor 


Not half so fix'd the Trojan could remain , 

While Anna hegg’d and Dido rag'd in vain. 

— Alexander Pope 






DIDO* 

The story you may find in Latin rhymes — 

But in this very town I know a woman 
Quite up to date, belonging to our times, 

And ignorant of wandering Trojan foemen. 

Yet she has built about her heart a city, 

Greater than Carthage and than Tyre more fair. 
Bound by a wall that shuts out human pity, 

She waits for an Aeneas unaware. 

And he will come, this light insouciant lover, 
Blowing his bugles to a rising morrow — 

To rend her veil, her wizened mind uncover, 

And leave her conquered by life’s stinging sorrow. 

Dreaming, I see her climb a funeral pyre 
And burn her soul to ashes in love’s fire. 

— Virginia McCormick 


* Poetry , Vol. XXIX, Number II, November, 1926. 


49 


5° 


Master Vergil 


From THE LEGEND OF GOOD 
WOMEN 

The Legend of Dido, Queen of Carthage 
Incipit Legenda Didonis martiris, Cartaginis regine. 

GlORY and honour, Virgil Mantuan, 

Be to thy name! and I shal, as I can, 

Folow thy lantern, as thou gost biforn, 

How Eneas to Dido was forsworn. 

In thy Eneid and Naso wol I take 
The tenour, and the grete effectes make. 

Whan Troye broght was to destruccioun 
By Grekes sleight, and namely by Sinoun, 

Feyning the hors y-offred to Minerve, 

Through which that many a Troyan moste sterve; 1 
And Ector had, after his deeth, appered, 

And fyr so wood, 2 it mighte nat be stered, 3 
In al the noble tour of Ilioun, 

That of the citee was the cheef dungeoun; 

And al the contre was so lowe y-broght, 

And Priamus the king fordoon and noght; 

And Eneas was charged by Venus 
To fleen awey, he took Ascanius, 

That was his sone, in his right hand, and fledde; 
And on his bakke he bar and with him ledde 
His olde fader, cleped Anchises, 

And by the weye his wyf Creusa he lees. 4 
And mochel sorwe hadde he in his mynde 
Er that he coude his felawshippe fynde. 

But, at the laste, whan he had hem founde, 

He made him redy in a certein stounde, 5 
And to the see ful faste he gan him hye, 

And saileth forth with al his companye 
Toward Itaile, as wolde destinee. 

1 perish 2 mad 3 controlled 4 lost 6 time 



Master Vergil 


S' 


But of his aventures in the see 

Nis nat to purpos for to speke of here, 

For hit accordeth nat to my matere. 

But, as I seide, of him and of Dido 
Shal be my tale, til that I have do. 

So longe he sailed in the salte see 
Til in Libye unnethe 1 aryved he, 

With shippes seven and with no more navye; 
And glad was he to londe for to hye, 2 
So was he with the tempest al to-shake. 

And whan that he the haven had y-take, 

He had a knight, was called Achates; 

And him of al his felawshippe he chees 
To goon with him, the contre for tespye; 

He took with him no more companye. 

But forth they goon, and lafte his shippes ryde, 
His fere 3 and he, with-outen any gyde. 

So longe he walketh in this wildernesse 
Til, at the laste, he mette an hunteresse. 

A bowe in honde and arwes hadde she, 

Her clothes cutted were unto the knee; 

But she was yit the fairest creature 
That ever was y-formed by nature; 

And Eneas and Achates she grette, 

And this she to hem spak, whan she hem mette. 
c Sawe ye, 5 quod she, e as ye han walked wyde, 
Any of my sustren walke yow besyde, 

With any wilde boor or other beste 
That they han hunted to, in this foreste, 
Y-tukked up, with arwes in her cas?’ 

c Nay, soothly, lady,’ quod this Eneas; 

‘But, by thy beaute, as hit thinketh me, 

Thou mightest never erthely womman be, 

But Phebus suster artow, as I gesse. 

And, if so be that thou be a goddesse, 

Have mercy on our labour and our wo.’ 

‘I nam no goddes, soothly,’ quod she tho; 

1 with difficulty 2 go 3 companion 



5 2 


Master Vergil 


‘For maidens walken in this contree here, 
With arwes and with bowe, in this manere. 
This is the regne of Libie, ther ye been, 

Of which that Dido lady is and queen’ — 

And shortly tolde him al the occasioun 
Why Dido com into that regioun, 

Of which as now me lusteth nat to ryme; 

Hit nedeth nat; hit ner but los of tyme. 

For this is al and som, it was Venus, 

His owne moder, that spak with him thus; 
And to Cartage she bad he sholde him dighte, 
And vanished anoon out of his sighte. 

I coude folwe, word for word, Virgyle, 

But it wolde lasten al to long a whyle. 

This noble queen, that cleped was Dido, 
That whylom was the wyf of Sitheo, 

That fairer was then is the brighte sonne, 

This noble toun of Cartage hath begonne; 

In which she regneth in so greet honour, 

That she was holde of alle quenes flour, 

Of gentilesse, of fredom, of beautee; 

That wel was him that mighte her ones see; 
Of kinges and of lordes so desyred, 

That al the world her beaute hadde y-fyred; 
She stood so wel in every wightes grace. 

Whan Eneas was come un-to that place, 
Unto the maister-temple of al the toun 
Ther Dido was in her devocioun, 

Ful prively his wey than hath he nome. 1 
Whan he was in the large temple come, 

I can nat seyn if that hit be possible, 

But Venus hadde him maked invisible — 

Thus seith the book, with-outen any lees. 

And whan this Eneas and Achates 
Hadden in this temple been over-al, 

Than founde they, depeynted on a wal, 

How Troye and al the lond destroyed was. 

1 taken 



Master Vergil 


53 


‘Allas! that I was born,’ quod Eneas, 

‘Through-out the world our shame is kid 1 so wyde, 
Now it is peynted upon every syde! 

We, that weren in prosperitee, 

Be now disslaundred, and in swich degre, 

Ne lenger for to liven I ne kepe!’ 2 

And, with that worde, he brast out for to wepe 

So tendrely, that routhe hit was to sene. 

This fresshe lady, of the citee quene, 

Stood in the temple, in her estat royal, 

So richely, and eek so fair withal, 

So yong, so lusty, with her eyen glade, 

That, if that god, that heven and erthe made, 
Wolde han a love, for beaute and goodnesse, 

And womanhod, and trouthe, and seemlinesse, 
Whom sholde he loven but this lady swete? 

There nis no womman to him half so mete. 

Fortune, that hath the world in governaunce, 
Hath sodeinly broght in so newe a chaunce, 

That never was ther yit so fremd 3 a cas. 

For al the companye of Eneas, 

Which that he wende han loren 4 in the see, 

Aryved is, nat fer from that citee; 

For which, the grettest of his lordes some 
By aventure ben to the citee come, 

Unto that same temple, for to seke 
The quene, and of her socour her beseke; 

Swich renoun was ther spronge of her goodnesse. 
And, whan they hadden told al hir distresse, 

And al hir tempest and hir harde cas, 

Unto the quene appered Eneas, 

And openly beknew that hit was he. 

Who hadde Ioye than but his meynee, 

That hadden founde hir lord, hir governour? 

The quene saw they dide him swich honour, 

And had herd ofte of Eneas, er tho, 5 
And in her herte she hadde routhe and wo 

1 made known 2 care 3 strange * thought to have lost 6 before that 



54 


Master Vergil 


That ever swich a noble man as he 
Shal been disherited in swich degree; 

And saw the man, that he was lyk a knight, 
And suffisaunt of persone and of might, 

And lyk to been a veray gentil man; 

And wel his wordes he besette can, 

And had a noble visage for the nones, 

And formed wel of braunes and of bones. 
For, after Venus, hadde he swich fairnesse, 
That no man might be half so fair, I gesse. 
And wel a lord he semed for to be. 

And, for he was a straunger, somwhat she 
Lyked him the bet,-as, god do bote, 

To som folk ofte newe thing is swote. 

Anoon her herte hath pitee of his wo, 

And, with that pitee, love com in also; 

And thus, for pitee and for gentilesse, 
Refresshed moste he been of his distresse. 

She seide, certes, that she sory was 
That he hath had swich peril and swich cas; 
And, in her frendly speche, in this manere 
She to him spak, and seide as ye may here. 

c Be ye nat Venus sone and Anchises? 

In good feith, al the worship and encrees 
That I may goodly doon yow, ye shul have. 
Your shippes and your meynee shal I save;’ 
And many a gentil word she spak him to; 
And comaunded her messageres go 
The same day, with-outen any faile, 

His shippes for to seke, and hem vitaile. 

She many a beste to the shippes sente, 

And with the wyn she gan him to presente; 
And to her royal paleys she her spedde, 

And Eneas alwey with her she ledde. 

What nedeth yow the feste to descryve? 

He never beter at ese was his lyve. 

Ful was the feste of deyntees and richesse, 
Of instruments, of song, and of gladnesse, 



Master Vergil 


55 


And many an amorous loking and devys. 

This Eneas is come to Paradys 
Out of the swolow of helle, and thus in Ioye 
Remembreth him of his estat in Troye. 

To dauncing-chambres ful of parements, 

Of riche beddes, and of ornaments, 

This Eneas is lad, after the mete. 

And with the quene whan that he had sete, 
And spices parted, and the wyn agoon, 

Unto his chambres was he lad anoon 
To take his ese and for to have his reste. 

With al his folk, to doon what so hem leste. 

Ther nas coursere wel y-bridled noon, 

Ne stede, for the lusting wel to goon, 

Ne large palfrey, esy for the nones, 

Ne Iuwel, fretted ful of riche stones, 

Ne sakkes ful of gold, of large wighte, 

Ne ruby noon, that shynede by nighte, 

Ne gentil hautein faucon heronere, 

Ne hound, for hert or wilde boor or dere, 

Ne coupe of gold, with florins newe y-bete, 
That in the lond of Libie may be gete, 

That Dido ne hath hit Eneas y-sent; 

And al is payed, what that he hath spent. 
Thus can this noble quene her gestes calle, 

As she that can in fredom 1 passen alle. 

Eneas sothly eek, with-outen lees, 

Hath sent un-to his shippe, by Achates, 

After his sone, and after riche thinges, 

Both ceptre, clothes, broches, and eek ringes, 
Som for to were, and som for to presente 
To her, that all thise noble thinges him sente; 
And bad his sone, how that he sholde make 
The presenting, and to the quene hit take. 

Repaired is this Achates again, 

And Eneas ful blisful is and fain 
To seen his yonge sone Ascanius. 

1 generosity 



5 6 


Master Vergil 


But natheles, our autour telleth us, 

That Gupido, that is the god of love, 

At preyere of his moder, hye above, 

Hadde the lyknes of the child y-take, 

This noble quene enamoured to make 
On Eneas; but, as of that scripture, 

Be as be may, I make of hit no cure. 1 

But sooth is this, the quene hath mad swich chere 

Un-to this child, that wonder is to here; 

And of the present that his fader sente 
She thanked him ful ofte, in good entente. 

Thus is this quene in plesaunce and in Ioye, 

With al this newe lusty folk of Troye. 

And of the dedes hath she more enquered 
Of Eneas, and al the story lered 
Of Troye; and al the longe day they tweye 
Entendeden to speken and to pleye; 

Of which ther gan to breden swich a fyr, 

That sely 2 Dido hath now swich desyr 
With Eneas, her newe gest, to dele, 

That she hath lost her hew, and eek her hele. 3 
Now to theffect, now to the fruit of al, 

Why I have told this story, and tellen shal. 

Thus I beginne; hit fil, upon a night, 

When that the mone up-reysed had her light, 

This noble quene un-to her reste wente; 

She syketh 4 sore, and gan her-self turmente. 

She waketh, walweth, 5 maketh many a brayd, 6 
As doon thise loveres, as I have herd sayd. 

And at the laste, unto her suster Anne 

She made her moon, and right thus spak she thanne. 

‘Now, dere suster myn, what may hit be 
That me agasteth in my dreme?’ quod she. 

‘This ilke Troyan is so in my thoght, 

For that me thinketh he is so wel y-wroght, 

And eek so lykly for to be a man, 

And therwithal so mikel good he can, 

1 I pay no heed to it 2 innocent 3 health 4 sigheth 6 tosseth 6 start 



Master Vergil 


57 


That al my love and lyf lyth in his cure. 

Have ye not herd him telle his aventure? 

Now certes, Anne, if that ye rede 1 hit me, 

I wolde fain to him y-wedded be; 

This is theffect; what sholde I more seye? 

In him lyth al, to do me live or deye.’ 

Her suster Anne, as she that coude 2 her good, 
Seide as her thoughte, and somdel hit with-stood. 
But her-of was so long a sermoning, 

Hit wer to long to make rehersing; 

But fynally, hit may not been with-stonde; 

Love wol love — for no wight wol hit wonde . 3 

The dawening up-rist out of the see; 

This amorous quene chargeth her meynee 
The nettes dresse, and speres brode and kene; 

An hunting wol this lusty fresshe quene; 

So priketh her this newe Ioly wo. 

To hors is al her lusty folk y-go; 

Un-to the court the houndes been y-broght, 

And up-on courseis, swift as any thoght, 

Hir yonge knightes hoven al aboute, 

And of her wommen eek an huge route. 

Up-on a thikke palfrey, paper-whyt, 

With sadel rede, embrouded with delyt, 

Of gold the barres up-enbossed hye, 

Sit Dido, al in gold and perre 4 wrye ; 5 
And she is fair, as is the brighte morwe, 

That heleth seke folk of nightes sorwe. 

Up-on a courser, startling as the fyr, 

Men mighte turne him with a litel wyr, 

Sit Eneas, lyk Phebus to devyse; 

So was he fresshe arayed in his wyse. 

The fomy brydel with the bit of gold 
Governeth he, right as him-self hath wold. 

And forth this noble quene thus lat I ryde 
An hunting, with this Troyan by her syde. 

The herd of hertes founden is anoon, 

1 advise 2 knew 3 desist 4 jewelry 6 covered 



Master Vergil 


5 § 

With ‘hey! go bet! prik thou! lat goon, lat goon! 
Why nil the leoun comen or the bere, 

That I mighte ones mete him with this spere?’ 
Thus seyn thise yonge folk, and up they kille 
These hertes wilde, and han hem at hir wille. 

Among al this to-romblen gan the heven, 

The thunder rored with a grisly steven ; 1 
Doun com the rain, with hail and sleet so faste, 
With hevenes fyr, that hit so sore agaste 
This noble quene, and also her meynee, 

That ech of hem was glad a-wey to flee. 

And shortly, fro the tempest her to save, 

She fledde her-self into a litel cave, 

And with her wente this Eneas al-so; 

I noot , 2 with hem if ther wente any mo; 

The autour maketh of hit no mencioun. 

And heer began the depe affeccioun 
Betwix hem two; this was the firste morwe 
Of her gladnesse, and ginning of her sorwe. 

For ther hath Eneas y-kneled so, 

And told her al his herte, and al his wo, 

And sworn so depe, to her to be trewe, 

For wele or wo, and chaunge for no newe, 

And as a fals lover so wel can pleyne, 

That sely Dido rewed 3 on his peyne 
And tok him for husband, to been his wyf 
For ever-mo, whyl that hem laste lyf. 

And after this, whan that the tempest stente, 
With mirth out as they comen, hoom they wente. 

The wikked fame up roos, and that anon, 

How Eneas hath with the quene y-gon 
In-to the cave; and demed as hem liste; 

And whan the king, that Yarbas hight, hit wiste. 
As he that had her loved ever his lyf, 

And wowed her, to have her to his wyf, 

Swich sorwe as he hath maked, and swich chere , 4 
Hit is a routhe and pite for to here. 

1 voice 2 know not 3 had pity 


4 appearance 




Master Vergil 


59 


But, as in love, al-day hit happeth so, 

That oon shal laughen at anothers wo; 

Now laugheth Eneas, and is in Ioye 
And more richesse than ever was in Troye. 

O sely womman, ful of innocence, 

Ful of pitee, of trouthe, and conscience, 

What maked yow to men to trusten so? 

Have ye swich routhe upon hir feined wo, 

And han swich olde ensamples yow beforn? 

See ye nat alle, how they been for-sworn? 

Wher see ye oon, that he ne hath laft his leef , 1 
Or been unkynde, or doon her som mischeef, 

Or pilled 2 her, or bosted of his dede? 

Ye may as wel hit seen, as ye may rede; 

Tak heed now of this grete gentil-man, 

This Troyan, that so wel her plesen can, 

That feineth him so trewe and obeising, 

So gentil and so privy of his doing, 

And can so wel doon alle his obeisaunces, 

And waiten her at festes and at daunces, 

And when she goth to temple and hoom ageyn, 
And fasten til he hath his lady seyn, 

And bere in his devyses, for her sake, 

Noot I nat what; and songes wolde he make, 
Iusten, and doon of armes many thinges, 

Sende her lettres, tokens, broches, ringes — 

Now herkneth, how he shal his lady serve! 
Ther-as he was in peril for to sterve 3 
For hunger, and for mischeef in the see. 

And desolat, and fled from his contree, 

And al his folk with tempest al to-driven, 

She hath her body and eek her reame 4 yiven 
In-to his hond, ther-as she mighte have been 
Of other lond than of Cartage a queen, 

And lived in Ioye y-nogh; what wolde ye more? 

This Eneas, that hath so depe y-swore, 

Is wery of his craft with-in a throwe; 

1 love 2 robbed 3 die 


4 realm 




6o 


Master Vergil 


The hote ernest is al over-blowe. 

And prively he doth his shippes dighte, 

And shapeth him to stele a-wey by nighte. 

This Dido hath suspecioun of this, 

And thoughte wel, that hit was al a-mis; 

For in his bedde he lyth a-night and syketh; 
She asketh him anoon, what him mislyketh — 
‘My dere herte, which that I love most ? 5 

‘Certes , 5 quod he, ‘this night my fadres gost 
Hath in my sleep so sore me tormented, 

And eek Mercurie his message hath presented, 
That nedes to the conquest of Itaile 
My destinee is sone for to saile; 

For which, me tliinketh, brosten is myn herte ! 5 
Ther-with his false teres out they sterte; 

And taketh her with-in his armes two. 

‘Is that in ernest , 5 quod she; ‘wil ye so? 
Have ye nat sworn to wyve me to take, 

Alas! what womman wil ye of me make? 

I am a gentil-woman and a queen, 

Ye wil nat fro your wyf thus foule fleen? 

That I was born! alias! what shal I do ? 5 

To telle in short, this noble queen Dido, 

She seketh halwes , 1 and doth sacrifyse; 

She kneleth, cryeth, that routhe is to devyse; 
Coniureth him, and profreth him to be 
His thral, his servant in the leste gree; 

She falleth him to foot, and swowneth there 
Dischevele, with her brighte gilte here, 

And seith, ‘have mercy! let me wLh yow ryde! 
Thise lordes, which that wonen 2 me besyde 
Wil me destroyen only for your sake. 

And, so ye wil me now to wyve take, 

As ye han sworn, than wol I yive yow leve 
To sleen me with your swerd now sone at eve! 
For than yit shal I dyen as your wyf. 

* * * * 


shrines 


2 live 



Master Vergil 


61 


Mercy, lord! have pite in your thoght!’ 

But al this thing availeth her right noght; 

For on a night, slepinge, he let her lye, 

And stal a-wey un-to his companye, 

And, as a traitour, forth he gan to saile 
Toward the large contre of Itaile. 

Thus hath he laft Dido in wo and pyne; 

And wedded ther a lady hight Lavyne. 

A cloth he lafte, and eek his swerd stonding, 
Whan he fro Dido stal in her sleping, 

Right at her beddes heed, so gan he hye 
Whan that he stal a-wey to his navye; 

Which cloth, whan sely Dido gan awake, 

She hath hit kist ful ofte for his sake; 

And seide, ‘O cloth, whyl Iupiter hit leste , 1 
Tak now my soule, unbind me of this unreste! 

I have fulfild of fortune al the cours.’ 

And thus, alias! with-outen his socours, 

Twenty tyme y-swowned hath she thanne. 

And, whan that she un-to her suster Anne 
Compleyned had, of which I may nat wryte — 
So greet a routhe I have hit for tendyte 2 — 

And bad her norice and her suster goon 
To fecchen fyr and other thing anoon, 

And seide, that she wolde sacrifye. 

And, whan she mighte her tyme wel espye, 
Up-on the fyr of sacrifys she sterte, 

And with his swerd she rof 3 her to the herte. 

But, as myn autour seith, right thus she seyde; 
Or she was hurt, before that she deyde, 

She wroot a lettre anoon, that thus began: — 
‘Right so,’ quod she, ‘as that the whyte swan 
Ayeins his deeth beginneth for to singe, 

Right so to yow make I my compleyninge. 

Nat that I trowe to geten yow again, 

For wel I woot that it is al in vain, 

Sin that the goddes been contraire to me. 

1 may please 2 to indite 3 pierced 



62 


Master Vergil 


But sin my name is lost through yow,’ quod she, 
‘I may wel lese a word on yow, or letter, 

Al-be-it that I shal be never the better; 

For thilke wind that blew your ship a-wey, 

The same wind hath blowe a-wey your fey.’ 1 — 
But who wol al this letter have in mynde, 

Rede Ovide, and in him he shal hit fynde. 

Explicit Legenda Didonis martiris, Cartaginis regine. 

— Geoffrey Chaucer [1340?-! 400] 



Master Vergil 


6 3 


From CONFESSIO AM ANTIS 

[Book IV, 11. 77-142 ] 

Ayein Lachesce in loves cas 
I finde how whilom Eneas, 

Whom Anchises to Sone hadde, 

With gret navie, which he ladde 
From Troie, aryveth at Cartage, 

Wher for a while his herbergage 
He tok; and it betidde so, 

With hire which was qweene tho 
Of the Cite his aqueintance 
He wan, whos name in remembrance 
Is yit, and Dido sche was hote; 1 
Which loveth Eneas so hote 2 
Upon the wordes whiche he seide, 

That al hire herte on him sche leide 
And dede al holi what he wolde. 

Bot after that, as it be scholde, 

Fro thenne he goth toward Ytaile 
Be Schipe, and there his arivaile 
Hath take, and schop him forto ryde. 

Bot sche, which mai noght longe abide 
The hote peine of loves throwe, 

Anon withinne a litel throwe, 

A lettre unto hir kniht hath write, 

And dede him pleinly forto wite. 

If he made eny tariinge, 

To drecche 3 of his ayeincomynge, 4 
That sche ne mihte him fiele and se, 

Sche scholde stonde in such degre 
As whilom stod a Swan tofore, 

Of that sche hadde hire make lore; 

For sorwe a fethere into hire brain 
She schof and hath hireselve slain; 

2 hotly 3 delay 


1 named 


4 return 



6 + 


Master Vergil 


As king Menander in a lay 

The sothe hath founde, wher sche lay 

Sprantlende with hire wynges tweie, 

As sche which scholde thanne deie 
For love of him which was hire make. 

‘And so schal I do for thi sake, 5 
This qweene seide, ‘wel I wot.’ 

Lo, to Enee thus sche wrot 

With many an other word of pleinte: 

Bot he, which hadde hise thoghtes feinte 
Towardes love and full of Slowthe, 

His time lette, and that was rowthe: 

For sche, which loveth him tofore, 

Desireth evere more and more, 

And whan sche sih him tarie so, 

Hire herte was so full of wo, 

That compleignende manyfold 
Sche hath hire oghne tale told, 

Unto hirself and this sche spak: 

‘Ha, who fond evere such a lak 
Of Slowthe in eny worthi kniht? 

Now wot I wel my deth is diht 
Thurgh him which scholde have be mi lif. 5 
Bot forto stinten al tbis strif, 

Thus whan sche sih non other bote, 1 
Riht evene unto hire herte rote 
A naked swerd anon sche threste, 

And thus sche gat hireselve reste 
In remembrance of alle slowe. 

Wherof, my Sone, thou miht knowe 
How tariinge upon the nede 
In loves cause is forto drede; 

And that hath Dido sore aboght, 

Whos deth schal evere be bethoght. 

— John Gower \d. 1408] 


1 remedy 



Master Vergil 


6 S 


From THE FALL OF PRINCES 

[Book II, 11 . 2149-2176] 

Touchyng Dido lat ther be no striff: 

Thouh that she be accused off Ouide, 1 
Afftir Bochas I wrot hir chaste liff, 

And the contrary I haue set a-side; 

For me thouhte it was bet 2 tabide 3 

On hir goodnesse, than thyng reherse in deede, 

Which myhte resowne ageyn hir wommanheede. 

To Eneas thouh she was fauourable, 

To Ytaile makyng his passage, 

A 1 that she dede, it was comendable, 

Hym to receyue comyng be Cartage; 

Thouh sum folk wern large off ther language, 
Amysse texpowne 4 be report, or texpresse 5 
Thyng doon to hym onli off gentilesse. 

Ther shal for me be maad no rehersaile 
But as I fynde wretyn in Bochas; 

For to sey weel may moche more auaile 
Than froward speche, in many dyuers cas. 

But al Cartage offte seide alas, 

Hir deth compleynyng thoruhout ther cite, 

Which slouh hirselff tobserue 6 hir chastite.* 

— John Lydgate [c. 1370 -c. 1451] 

1 Ovid 2 better 3 to dwell 4 to explain 6 to express 6 to observe 

* These are the closing stanzas of a passage (Book II, 11 . 1898-2170) in which 
Lydgate tells of Dido’s flight from Tyre, her building of Carthage, her vow of chastity, 
the determined wooing of her by a neighboring king, her resolve to die, her death by 
knife and funeral pyre. This alternative version of Dido’s death is told by Boccaccio 
(Bochas). Cf. also Turbervile, Of Dido and the Truth of Her Death, a translation of 
Ausonius, Epigram 118.7. Yet Lydgate elsewhere speaks of JEneas’s desertion of 
Dido. Cf. Fall of Princes, Book II, 11 . 986-987: 

Remembryng also thunkyndli gret outrage 
Be Eneas doon to Dido off Cartage; 
and Book V, 11 . 2621-2623: 

Dido the firste that bilte that cite 
And made touris & the stronge wall, 

Which was betrasshed falsly of Enee. 




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Master Vergil 


From THE TRAGEDIE OF DIDO, 
QUEENE OF CARTHAGE 

[Act V, ll. 1704-1725] 

Dido. Now Dido , with these reliques burne thy selfe, 
And make JEneas famous through the world, 

For periurie and slaughter of a Queene: 

Here lye the Sword that in the darksome Caue 
He drew, and swore by, to be true to me: 

Thou shalt burne first, thy crime is worse then his: 
Here lye the garment which I cloath’d him in 
When first he came on shoare: perish thou to[o]. 
These letters, lines, and periurd papers all, 

Shall burne to cinders in this pretious flame. 

And now ye Gods, that guide the starrie frame. 

And order all things at your high dispose, 

Graunt, though the traytors land in Italy , 

They may be still tormented with vnrest, 

And from mine ashes, let a Gonquerour rise, 

That may reuenge this treason to a Queene, 

By plowing vp his Countries with the Sword. 

Betwixt this land and that be never league, 

Littora littoribus contraria , fluctibus vndas 
Imprecor: arma armis: pugnent ipsiq. nepotes: 

Liue, false Mneas! truest Dido dyes; 

Sic, sic iuvat ire sub vrnbras. 

[Stabs herself and throws herself into the flames .] 

— Christopher Marlowe [1564-1593] 

— Thomas Nashe [1567-1601] 



Master Vergil 


6 7 


From THE HEART FLED AGAIN 


False, foolish Heart! didst thou not say, 
That thou wouldst never leave me more? 
Behold again ’tis fled away, 

Fled as far from me as before. 

I strove to bring it back again, 

I cry’d and hollow’d after it in vain. 


Even so the gentle Tyrian Dame , 

When neither Grief nor Love prevail, 

Saw the dear object of her flame, 

Th’ingrateful Trojan hoist his sail: 

Aloud she call’d to him to stay; 

The wind bore him , and her lost words away. 


— Abraham Cowley [1618-1667] 



68 


Master Vergil 


SCHOLASTICUS* 

He rose, smoothed flat his notes, tweaked the desk-light, 
Thrust a curt nod at us: 

And his assault on Vergil that wild night, 

Good friends, was — ominous. 

‘Anchises’ son — poltroon and rake, in short. 

Pius? — a sad misnomer! 

The author too a flatterer of the court, 

And a crude thief (from Homer). 

‘The pith in Dido’s passion (strangely human), 

The stress on jewels and flowers, 

But proved the poet some voluptuous woman 
(Still clever after hours)! . . 

Well, well . . . And yet we dropped our jibes with years: 
He’d been but pert and green. 

He prospered with us (grades, committees, shears, 

Syntax, and such routine) . . . 

Of late he probed a man who’d lost his wife, 

To put his grief to school: 

A fool at letters is a fool at life — 

But life most feels him fool. 


— William Ellery Leonard 


* From A Son of Earth, New York, The Viking Press, 1928. 




THE ^ENEID 


III. THE FALL OF TROY 

Or the tale of Troy divine. 

—John Milton 




Sr 




) f 














■* : ■ 

... 












From HAMLET 

[Act II, Sc. 2, ll. 463-551] 

Hamlet. I heard thee speak me a speech once, but it was 
never acted; or, if it was, not above once; for the play, I 
remember, pleased not the million. . . . One speech in 
it I chiefly loved; ’twas vEneas’ tale to Dido; and there¬ 
about of it especially, where he speaks of Priam’s slaughter. 
If it live in your memory, begin at this line: let me see, let 
me see: — 

‘The rugged Pyrrhus, like the Hyrcanian beast, —’ 

’Tis not so, it begins with Pyrrhus: — 

‘The rugged Pyrrhus, he, whose sable arms, 

Black as his purpose, did the night resemble 
When he lay couched in the ominous horse, 

Hath now this dread and black complexion smear’d 
With heraldry more dismal; head to foot 
Now he is total gules; horridly trick’d 
With blood of fathers, mothers, daughters, sons, 

Bak’d and impasted with the parching streets, 

That lend a tyrannous and damned light 
To their vile murders: roasted in wrath and fire, 

And thus o’er-sized with coagulate gore, 

With eyes like carbuncles, the hellish Pyrrhus 
Old grandsire Priam seeks.’ 

[So proceed you.] 

Polonius. ’Fore God, my lord, well spoken; with good 
accent and good discretion. 

First Player. ‘Anon, he finds him 

Striking too short at Greeks; his antique sword, 
Rebellious to his arm, lies where it falls, 

Repugnant to command. Unequal match’d, 

Pyrrhus at Priam drives; in rage strikes wide; 

But with the whiff and wind of his fell sword 
The unnerved father falls. Then senseless Ilium, 

71 


72 


Master Vergil 


Seeming to feel this blow, with flaming top 
Stoops to his base, and with a hideous crash 
Takes prisoner Pyrrhus’ ear: for lo! his sword, 

Which was declining on the milky head 
Of reverend Priam, seem’d i’ the air to stick: 

So, as a painted tyrant, Pyrrhus stood, 

And like a neutral to his will and matter, 

Did nothing. 

But, as we often see, against some storm, 

A silence in the heavens, the rack stand still, 

The bold winds speechless and the orb below 
As hush as death, anon the dreadful thunder 
Doth rend the region; so, after Pyrrhus’ pause, 

Aroused vengeance sets him new a-work; 

And never did the Cyclops’ hammers fall 
On Mars’s armour, forg’d for proof eterne, 

With less remorse than Pyrrhus’ bleeding sword 
Now falls on Priam. 

Out, out, thou strumpet, Fortune! All you gods 
In general synod, take away her power; 

Break all the spokes and fellies from her wheel, 

And howl the round nave down the hill of heaven, 

As low as to the fiends!’ 

Polonius. This is too long. 

Hamlet. It shall to the barber’s, with your beard. Prithee 
say on: he’s for a jig or a tale of bawdry, or he sleeps. Say 
on; come to Hecuba. 

First Player. ‘But who, O! who had seen the mobled 
queen —’ 

Hamlet. ‘The mobled queen?’ — 

Polonius. That’s good; ‘mobled queen’ is good. 

First Player. ‘Run barefoot up and down, threat’ning the 
flames 

With bisson rheum; a clout upon that head 
Where late the diadem stood; and, for a robe, 

About her lank and all o’er-teemed loins, 

A blanket, in the alarm of fear caught up; 

Who this had seen, with tongue in venom steep’d, 



Master Vergil 


73 


’Gainst Fortune’s state would treason have pronounc’d: 
But if the gods themselves did see her then, 

When she saw Pyrrhus make malicious sport 
In mincing with his sword her husband’s limbs, 

The instant burst of clamour that she made — 

Unless things mortal move them not at all — 

Would have made milch the burning eyes of heaven, 
And passion in the gods.’ 

Polonius. Look! wh’er he has not turned his colour and has 
tears in’s eyes. Prithee, no more.* 


— William Shakespeare [1564-1616] 


* ‘The passage inserted here should be compared with Marlowe and Nash’s Dido, 
Queen of Carthage (1594), II. 1 . 2i4ff. It is a matter of critical dispute whether Shake¬ 
speare intended this passage as burlesque or whether he selected deliberately the 
earlier turgid romantic style to contrast with his more realistic dramatic method in 
this scene. The latter seems the more probable.’ (The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of 
Denmark, edited by Jack Randall Crawford, “The Yale Shakespeare,” Yale University 
Press, 1917, p. 163.) 




74 


Master Vergil 


From THE TALE OF TROY 

AnD now this wasteful war that lasted long, 
To dames of Troy and Greece a tedious wrong, 
With hot encounter and unhappy fight, 

The tragic end of many a hardy knight, 

Gan sort to this, that Greeks, to blear the eyes 
Of Troyans, gin take counsel and advice 
To rear by art a huge unwieldy frame, 

Much like a horse; and having fraught the same 
With men of war, they make a cunning show, 

As if from Troy they homewards meant to go, 
And raise the siege, and leave the prize behind, 
But gods do know they nothing less did mind; 
For, as I ween, my history doth say, 

To Tenedos the Grecians slunk away, 

An isle that gave them harbour and abode: 

Now leave we there these Greeks to lie at road. 

Amidst this hurly-burly and uproar, 

King Priam sends away young Polydore, 

With store of treasure and with mickle muck 
His youngest son, to Thrace: but little luck 
Ensu’d hereof; for Polymnestor, lo, 

The thirst of Priam’s pillage working so, 

A woful tale, as I have heard it told, 

Murthers this prince for lucre of his gold. 

The traitorous Sinon, for his villany 
Th’ infamous author of Troy’s tragedy, 

While subtle Grecians lurk’d in Tenedos, 

Gan with the silly Troyans highly glose, 

And tell a tale that sounded like a truth, 

A tale that mov’d the hearers’ hearts to ruth; 
And so bewitch’d King Priam and his court, 
That now at last, to Troyans’ fatal hurt, 

Instead of that might most their states advance, 
They greed to hoise this engine of mischance, 



Master Vergil 


75 


And make a breach, like fools, and never lin 
Till their own hands had pull’d their enemies in. 
Thus riot, rape, and vain credulity, 

Bin nam’d chief causes of Troy’s tragedy. 

This monstrous horse, that in his spacious sides 
A traitorous troop of armed Grecians hides, 

Gan now discharge his vast and hideous load, 

And spread his bloody bowels all abroad. 

It was the time when midnight’s sleep and rest 
With quiet pause the town of Troy possess’d; 

The Greeks forsake their ships and make return: 
Now Troy, as was foretold, began to burn, 

And Ilium’s lofty towers to smoke apace; 

The conquering foe begins amain to chase 
Th’ affrighted Phrygians, that now unawares 
False Sinon had entrapped in his snares. 

Ah, what a piercing sight it was to see 
So fair a town as Troy was said to be, 

By quenchless fire laid level with the soil, 

The prince and people made the soldiers’ spoil! 

Th’ unhappy Priam maz’d with frights and fears, 
Seeing his palace flame about his ears, 

Out of his wretched slumber hastily start, 

And, weening to have play’d a young man’s part, 
Girds-to his arming-sword with trembling hand; 
But she that erst brought forth the fatal brand 
That fir’d the town, the most unhappy queen, 
Whose like for wretchedness was never seen, 

Said, “Leave, my lord; becomes not us to strive, 
Whom would no morning sun might see alive! 

And fly from aid of men to powers divine, 

And so with me lay hold of Phoebus’ shrine.” 

But he, whose bloody mind and murdering rage 
Nor awe of gods nor reverence of age 
Could temper from a deed so tyrannous, 

Achilles’ son, the fierce unbridled Pyrrhus, 

His father’s angry ghost enticing him, 

With slaughtering hand, with visage pale and grim, 



7 6 


Master Vergil 


Hath hent this aged Priam by the hair, 

Like butcher bent to slay; and even there, 

The man that lived so many golden years, 

The great commander of such lordly peers, 

The King of Troy, the mighty King of Troy, 

With cruel iron this cursed Greekish boy 
Rids of his life, as whilom he had done 
With shaft envenom’d Paris, old Priam’s son. 

Thus souls by swarms do press to Pluto’s hall; 

Thus, naked Troy, or now not Troy at all, 

Done is thy pride, dim is thy glorious gite, 

Slain is thy prince in this unhappy fight. 

* * * * 

Short tale to make, when thus the town of Troy 
The Greeks had sack’d, to Asia’s great annoy, 

When Pyrrhus had the guilty Paris slain, 

Lo, now at last the Greeks have home again, 

With loss of many a Greek and Troyan’s life, 

Their wither’d flower, King Menelaus’ wife. 

The good iEneas, whom the gods beleek 
Reserv’d some better future hap to seek, 

With old Anchises, leaves this conquer’d town, 

And, on the seas y-tossed up and down, 

Arrives at Lavine land, when he had seen 
The bounty of the famous Carthage queen, 

Who, forc’d by fate, this wandering knight deceiv’d, 
That him and his so royally receiv’d. 


George Peele [1558-^.1598] 



Master Vergil 


77 


From THE IRON AGE 

[Part II, Act 77 ] 

Ghost of Hector. Hence Mneas post from Troy , 
Reare that abroad the gods at home destroy. 

The Citty burnes, Priam and Priams glory 
Is all expir’d, and tumbled headlong downe: 
Cassandraes long neglected prophesies 
This night fulfils. If either strength or might 
Could have protected Troy , this hand, this arme 
That sau’d it oft, had kept it still from harme. 

But Troy is doom’d, here gins the fatall Story 
Of her sad sacke and fall of all her glory. 

Away, and beare thy Country gods along, 
Thousands shall issue from thy sacred seede, 

Citties more rich then this the Grecian spoyle, 

In after times shall thy successors build, 

Where Hectors name shall liue eternally. 

One Romulus , another Bruite shall reare, 

These shall nor Honours, nor iust Rectors want, 
Lumbardies Roome, great Britaines Troy-nouant. 
Heufuge nate Dea; teque his pater eripe flammis; 

Hostis habet muros , ruit alto a culmine Troia 
Sacra , suosque tibi commendat Troia penates. 

Hos cape fatorum comites , his moenia quaere , 

Magna pererrato statues quae denique ponto * 

— Thomas Heywood [d. c. 1650] 


* Cf. /Eneid II. 11. 289-295. 





THE .ENEID 


IV. ECHOES OF THE MANTUAN SONG 

Out of one Hercules were made an infinity 
of pigmies, yet all endued with human souls. 

—John Dryden 









From THE HOUS OF FAME 

[Book III , ll. 266-302 ] 

But in this riche lusty place, 

That Fames halle called was, 

Ful moche prees of folk ther nas, 1 
Ne crouding, for to mochil prees. 

But al on hye, above a dees, 

Sitte in a see imperial, 

That maad was of a rubee al, 

Which that a carbuncle is y-called, 

I saugh, perpetually y-stalled, 

A feminyne creature; 

That never formed by nature 
Nas swich another thing y-seye. 

For altherfirst, soth for to seye, 

Me thoughte that she was so lyte, 

That the lengthe of a cubyte 
Was lenger than she semed be; 

But thus sone, in a whyle, she 
Hir tho so wonderliche streighte, 2 
That with hir feet she erthe reighte, 3 
And with hir heed she touched hevene, 

Ther as shynen sterres sevene. 

And therto eek, as to my wit, 

I saugh a gretter wonder yit, 

Upon her eyen to beholde; 

But certeyn I hem never tolde; 4 
For as fele 5 eyen hadde she 
As fetheres upon foules be, 

Or weren on the bestes foure, 

That Goddes trone 6 gunne honoure, 

As Iohn writ in thapocalips. 

Hir here, that oundy 7 was and crips, 

not 2 stretched 3 reached 4 counted 6 many 6 throne 7 curly 
8l 


82 


Master Vergil 


As burned gold hit shoon to see. 

And soth to tellen, also she 
Had also fele up-stondyng eres 
And tonges, as on bestes heres; 

And on hir feet wexen, 1 saugh I, 

Partriches winges redely. 

— Geoffrey Chaucer [1340?-! 400] 



Master Vergil 


83 


From HUDIBRAS 

[Part II, Canto /] 

There is a tall long-sided Dame, 

(But wondrous light) ycleped Fame , 

That like a thin Camelion Bourds 
Herself on Air, and eats her words: 

Upon her shoulders wings she wears, 

Like Hanging-sleeves, lin’d through with Ears, 
And Eies, and Tongues, as Poets list, 

Made good by deep Mythologist. 

With these, she through the Welkin flies, 

And sometimes carries Truth , oft Lies. 


— Samuel Butler [1612-1680] 



8 4 


Master Vergil 


L AODAMIA 

‘With sacrifice before the rising morn 
Vows have I made by fruitless hope inspired; 

And from the infernal Gods, ’mid shades forlorn 
Of night, my slaughtered Lord have I required: 

Celestial pity I again implore; — 

Restore him to my sight — great Jove, restore!’ 

So speaking, and by fervent love endowed 

With faith, the Suppliant heavenward lifts her hands; 

While, like the sun emerging from a cloud, 

Her countenance brightens — and her eye expands; 

Her bosom heaves and spreads, her stature grows; 

And she expects the issue in repose. 

O terror! what hath she perceived? — O joy! 

What doth she look on? — whom doth she behold? 

Her Hero slain upon the beach of Troy? 

His vital presence? his corporeal mould? 

It is — if sense deceive her not — ’tis He! 

And a God leads him, winged Mercury! 

Mild Hermes spake—and touched her with his wand 
That calms all fear; ‘Such grace hath crowned thy prayer, 
Laodamia! that at Jove’s command 
Thy Husband walks the paths of upper air: 

He comes to tarry with thee three hours’ space; 

Accept the gift, behold him face to face!’ 

Forth sprang the impassioned Queen her Lord to clasp; 
Again that consummation she essayed; 

But unsubstantial Form eludes her grasp 
As often as that eager grasp was made. 

The Phantom parts — but parts to re-unite, 

And re-assume his place before her sight. 



Master Vergil 


85 


‘Protesilaus, lo! thy guide is gone! 

Confirm, I pray, the vision with thy voice: 

This is our palace, — yonder is thy throne; 

Speak, and the floor thou tread’st on will rejoice. 

Not to appal me have the gods bestowed 
This precious boon; and blest a sad abode.’ 

‘Great Jove, Laodamia! doth not leave 
His gifts imperfect: — Spectre though I be, 

I am not sent to scare thee or deceive; 

But in reward of thy fidelity. 

And something also did my worth obtain; 

For fearless virtue bringeth boundless gain. 

‘Thou knowest, the Delphic oracle foretold 
That the first Greek who touched the Trojan strand 
Should die; but me the threat could not withhold: 

A generous cause a victim did demand; 

And forth I leapt upon the sandy plain; 

A self-devoted chief — by Hector slain.’ 

‘Supreme of Heroes — bravest, noblest, best! 

Thy matchless courage I bewail no more, 

Which then, when tens of thousands were deprest 
By doubt, propelled thee to the fatal shore; 

Thou found’st — and I forgive thee — here thou art — 
A nobler counsellor than my poor heart. 

‘But thou, though capable of sternest deed, 

Wert kind as resolute, and good as brave; 

And he, whose power restores thee, hath decreed 
Thou should’st elude the malice of the grave: 
Redundant are thy locks, thy lips as fair 
As when their breath enriched Thessalian air. 

‘No Spectre greets me, — no vain Shadow this; 

Come, blooming Hero, place thee by my side! 

Give, on this well-known couch, one nuptial kiss 



86 


Master Vergil 


To me, this day, a second time thy bride!’ 

Jove frowned in heaven: the conscious Parcae threw 
Upon those roseate lips a Stygian hue. 

‘This visage tells thee that my doom is past: 

Nor should the change be mourned, even if the joys 
Of sense were able to return as fast 
And surely as they vanish. Earth destroys 
Those raptures duly — Erebus disdains: 

Calm pleasures there abide — majestic pains. 

‘Be taught, O faithful Consort, to control 
Rebellious passion: for the Gods approve 
The depth, and not the tumult, of the soul; 

A fervent, not ungovernable, love. 

Thy transports moderate; and meekly mourn 
When I depart, for brief is my sojourn —’ 

‘Ah, wherefore? — Did not Hercules by force 
Wrest from the guardian Monster of the tomb 
Alcestis, a reanimated corse, 

Given back to dwell on earth in vernal bloom? 
Medea’s spells dispersed the weight of years, 

And iEson stood a youth ’mid youthful peers. 

‘The Gods to us are merciful — and they 
Yet further may relent: for mightier far 
Than strength of nerve and sinew, or the sway 
Of magic potent over sun and star, 

Is love, though oft to agony distrest, 

And though his favorite seat be feeble woman’s breast. 

‘But if thou goest, I follow —’ ‘Peace!’ he said, — 

She looked upon him and was calmed and cheered; 
The ghastly colour from his lips had fled; 

In his deportment, shape, and mien, appeared 
Elysian beauty, melancholy grace, 

Brought from a pensive though a happy place. 



Master Vergil 


8 7 


He spake of love, such love as Spirits feel 
In worlds whose course is equable and pure; 

No fears to beat away — no strife to heal — 

The past unsighed for, and the future sure; 

Spake of heroic arts in graver mood 
Revived, with finer harmony pursued; 

Of all that is most beauteous — imaged there 
In happier beauty; more pellucid streams, 

An ampler ether, a diviner air, 

And fields invested with purpureal gleams; 

Climes which the sun, who sheds the brightest day 
Earth knows, is all unworthy to survey. 

Yet there the Soul shall enter which hath earned 
That privilege by virtue. — Til,’ said he, 
c The end of man’s existence I discerned, 

Who from ignoble games and revelry 

Could draw, when we had parted, vain delight, 

While tears were thy best pastime, day and night; 

‘And while my youthful peers before my eyes 
(Each hero following his peculiar bent) 

Prepared themselves for glorious enterprise 
By martial sports, — or, seated in the tent, 
Chieftains and kings in council were detained; 
What time the fleet at Aulis lay enchained. 

‘The wished-for wind was given: — I then revolved 
The oracle, upon the silent sea; 

And, if no worthier led the way, resolved 
That, of a thousand vessels, mine should be 
The foremost prow in pressing to the strand, — 
Mine the first blood that tinged the Trojan sand. 

‘Yet bitter, oft-times bitter, was the pang 
When of thy loss I thought, beloved Wife! 

On thee too fondly did my memory hang, 



88 


Master Vergil 


And on the joys we shared in mortal life, — 

The paths which we had trod — these fountains, flowers, 
My new-planned cities, and unfinished towers. 

‘But should suspense permit the Foe to cry, 

“Behold they tremble! — haughty their array, 

Yet of their number no one dares to die?” 

In soul I swept the indignity away: 

Old frailties then recurred: — but lofty thought, 

In act embodied, my deliverance wrought. 

‘And Thou, though strong in love, art all too weak 
In reason, in self-government too slow; 

I counsel thee by fortitude to seek 
Our blest re-union in the shades below. 

The invisible world with thee hath sympathised; 

Be thy affections raised and solemnised. 

‘Learn, by a mortal yearning, to ascend — 

Seeking a higher object. Love was given, 

Encouraged, sanctioned, chiefly for that end; 

For this the passion to excess was driven — 

That self might be annulled: her bondage prove 
The fetters of a dream, opposed to love. 5 — 

Aloud she shrieked! for Hermes reappears! 

Round the dear Shade she would have clung — 5 tis vain: 
The hours are past — too brief had they been years; 

And him no mortal effort can detain: 

Swift, toward the realms that know not earthly day, 

He through the portal takes his silent way, 

And on the palace-floor a lifeless corse She lay. 

Thus, all in vain exhorted and reproved, 

She perished; and, as for a wilful crime, 

By the just Gods whom no weak pity moved, 

Was doomed to wear out her appointed time, 

Apart from happy Ghosts, that gather flowers 
Of blissful quiet ’mid unfading bowers. 



Master Vergil 


89 


— Yet tears to human suffering are due; 

And mortal hopes defeated and o’erthrown 
Are mourned by man, and not by man alone, 

As fondly he believes. — Upon the side 
Of Hellespont (such faith was entertained) 

A knot of spiry trees for ages grew 

From out the tomb of him for whom she died; 

And ever, when such stature they had gained 
That Ilium’s walls were subject to their view, 

The trees’ tall summits withered at the sight; 

A constant interchange of growth and blight! * 

— William Wordsworth [1770-1850] 

* ‘The idea that underlies the poem is the same conception of “pietas” which Virgil 
has embodied in the JEneid, and with which he has associated, especially in the sixth 
book, which Wordsworth in many passages recalls, great ethical and religious concep¬ 
tions, derived in the main from the philosophy of Plato. . . . The poem is thus 
notable, not so much for the assimilation of details, as for natural affinity to the spiritu¬ 
ality of antiquity, of which Virgil is the purest exponent. Virgil’s seriousness, his ten¬ 
derness, his conception of the inevitable, and yet moral, order of the world, his desire 
for purification, his sadness, and yet complete freedom from unmanliness, his love 
of nature and belief in the sympathy of nature with man — all these are points of 
contact between the ancient and the modern poet.’ (W. A. Heard, quoted in The 
Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, edited by William Knight, London, Macmillan 
and Co., Ltd., 1896, Vol. VI, pp. xo-xi.) 


1 


i 



9° 


Master Vergil 


THE SONG OF IOPAS, 
UNFINISHED 

WHEN Dido feasted [first] the wand’ring Trojan knight, 
Whom Juno’s wrath with storms did force in Libic sands 
to light; 

That mighty Atlas taught, the supper lasting long, 

With crisped locks on golden harp Iopas sang in song: 
‘That same,’ quod he, ‘that we the World do call and 
name, 

Of heaven and earth with all contents, it is the very 
frame. 

Or thus, of heavenly powers by more power kept in one; 
Repugnant kinds, in mids of whom the earth hath place 
alone; 

Firm, round, of living things the mother, place, and nurse; 
Without the which in equal weight, this heaven doth hold 
his course: 

And it is call’d by name the first and moving keaven. 

The firmament is placed next, containing other seven. 

Of heavenly powers that same is planted full and thick, 

As shining lights which we call stars, that therein cleave 
and stick: 

With great swift sway, the first, and with his restless source, 
Carrieth itself, and all those eight, in even continual course. 
And of this world so round within that rolling case, 

Two points there be that never move, but firmly keep 
their place: 

The one we see alway, the other stands object 
Against the same, dividing just the ground by line direct; 
Which by imagination drawen from one to t’other 
Toucheth the centre of the earth, for way there is none 
other: 

And these be call’d the poles, described by stars not bright: 
Arctic the one northward we see: Antarctic the other hight. 



Master Vergil 


9 1 


The line, that we devise from the one to t’other so, 

As axle is; upon the which the heavens about do go; 
Which of water nor earth, of air nor fire, have kind; 
Therefore the substance of those same were hard for man 
to find: 

But they been uncorrupt, simple, and pure unmixt; 

And so we say been all those stars, that in those same be 
fixt: 

And eke those erring seven, in circle as they stray; 

So call’d, because against that first they have repugnant 
way; 

And smaller by-ways too, scant sensible to man; 

Too busy work for my poor harp; let sing them he that 
can. 

The widest save the first, of all these nine above, 

One hundred year doth ask of space, for one degree to 
move. 

Of which degrees we make in the first moving heaven, 
Three hundred and threescore, in parts justly divided 
even. 

And yet there is another between those heavens two, 
Whose moving is so sly, so slack, I name it not for now. 
The seventh heaven or the shell, next to the starry sky; 

All those degrees that gathereth up, with aged pace so sly: 
And doth perform the same, as elders’ count hath been, 

In nine and twenty years complete, and days almost six¬ 
teen; 

Doth carry in his bowt 1 the star of Saturn old, 

A threat’ner of all living things with drought and with his 
cold. 

The sixth whom this contains, doth stalk with younger 
pace, 

And in twelve year doth somewhat more than t’other’s 
voyage was: 

And this in it doth bear the star of Jove benign, 

’Tween Saturn’s malice and us men, friendly defending 
sign. 


1 Circuit or orbit. 



9 2 


Master Vergil 


The fifth bears bloody Mars, that in three hundred days 
And twice eleven with one full year hath finish’d all those 
ways. 

A year doth ask the fourth, and hours thereto six, 

And in the same the day his eye, the Sun, therein he sticks. 
The third that govern’d is by that that governs me, 

And love for love, and for no love provokes, as oft we see, 
In like space doth perform that course, that did the other. 
So doth the next unto the same, that second is in order: 
But it doth bear the star, that call’d is Mercury; 

That many a crafty secret step doth tread, as calcars 1 try. 
That sky is last, and fix’d next us those ways hath gone, 

In seven and twenty common days, and eke the third of 
one; 

And beareth with his sway the divers Moon about; 

Now bright, now brown, now bent, now full, and now her 
light is out: 

Thus have they of their own two movings all these Seven; 
One, wherein they be carried still, each in his several 
heaven: 

Another of themselves, where their bodies be laid 
In by-ways, and in lesser rounds, as I afore have said; 
Save of them all the Sun doth stray least from the straight: 
The starry sky hath but one course, that we have call’d 
the eight. 

And all these movings eight are meant from west to east; 
Although they seem to climb aloft, I say from east to west. 
But that is but by force of their first moving sky, 

In twice twelve hours from east to east, that carrieth them 
by and by: 

But mark we well also, these movings of these seven 
Be not above the axletree of the first moving heaven. 

For they have their two poles directly one to the other,’ &c. 

— Sir Thomas Wyatt [1503-1542] 


Astrologers. 



Master Vergil 


93 


LACRIM/E RERUM* 
Rossetti walked his sorrow to a field, 

Lay in the grass, and watched the wood-spurge flower. 
The three-cupped wood-spurge: all that earth would 
yield 

Rossetti to remember of that hour. 

He lay with grief, as others too have lain 
Who must remember strangely other things, — 

Things that still keep the contours of their pain, 

Whose colors cling longer than sorrow clings. 

The tears of things that have not any words, 

Deeper than music, stronger than the sea, 

And sadder than the flight of homing birds: 
Remembered things, outlasting memory. 

The shapes of suffering hold, when you and I 
And sorrow, and this cause for sorrow, die. 

— Babette Deutsch 


The New Republic, January 26, 1921, p. 255. 



94 


Master Vergil 


CIRCE AND IE NEAS* 

Seagirt, by woods encompassed, eyried within gates 
That no man opens — nay the unuttered Who goes there? 
Makes the benighted traveller tremble, half-aware 
What flocking maleficences mount upon the fume 
Of aromatic logs that secret fires consume — 

The solitary enchantress broods and meditates, 

Leaning out of the window of her turret-room. 

The dusk falls. Weary of singing to herself, she waits. 
And, hark, the pitiable chorus, brute on brute, 

From cage and sty and manger breaking to salute 
The hour of love remembered and the nuptial star. 
Surely this evening sets the prison doors ajar, 

Surely this evening . . . Bestial rage exacerbates 

Within their horrible hides the sense of what they are. 

Bear, lion, wolf and hog — she hears with a cold smile 
The stupid orchestration ebb and sink absorbed 
Into the foliage, into the sea-ripple. A moon big-orbed 
Illuminates the Tuscan water . . . ‘Who are these? 
‘And whence the fugitive sail the even southerly breeze 
‘Would spirit away beyond my luring perilous isle? 

‘Who thinks to steal a passage thro’ Circean seas? 5 

She loosed an air of magic melody (all the while 
Far out the breath of cedar-logs went floating free). 

But the long-waited lover that was not to be 

Passed like a pilgrim proof against the sweet decoy, 
Primed with Avernian revelation, in grave joy, 
Smelling the air of Tiber, every moonlit mile 

Nearing his promised walls, the second spring of Troy. 

— John Swinnerton Phillimore 


From the London Mercury , Volume 8, p. 127, June, 1923. 



THE GEORGICS 


The best poem of the best poet. 

—John Dryden 











From CYDER 

Nor is it hard to beautify each month 

With files of parti-colour’d fruits, that please 

The tongue and view at once. So Maro’s Muse, 

Thrice sacred Muse! commodious precepts gives 

Instructive to the swains, not wholly bent 

On what is gainful: sometimes she diverts 

From solid counsels, shows the force of love 

In savage beasts; how virgin face divine 

Attracts the helpless youth through storms and waves, 

Alone, in deep of night: then she describes 

The Scythian winter, nor disdains to sing 

How under ground the rude Riphaean race 

Mimic brisk Cyder with the brakes’ product wild; 

Sloes pounded, Hips, and Servis’ harshest juice. 

— John Philips [1676-1708] 


97 


98 


Master Vergil 


PAN AND LUNA 

Si credere dignum est. — Georgic iii. 390. 

O WORTHY of belief I hold it was, 

Virgil, your legend in those strange three lines! 

No question, that adventure came to pass 
One black night in Arcadia: yes, the pines, 

Mountains and valleys mingling made one mass 
Of black with void black heaven: the earth’s confines, 
The sky’s embrace, — below, above, around, 

All hardened into black without a bound. 

Fill up a swart stone chalice to the brim 

With fresh-squeezed yet fast-thickening poppy-juice: 

See how the sluggish jelly, late a-swim, 

Turns marble to the touch of who would loose 
The solid smooth, grown jet from rim to rim, 

By turning round the bowl! So night can fuse 
Earth with her all-comprising sky. No less, 

Light, the least spark, shows air and emptiness. 

And thus it proved when — diving into space, 

Stript of all vapour, from each web of mist 

Utterly film-free — entered on her race 

The naked Moon, full-orbed antagonist 

Of night and dark, night’s dowry: peak to base, 

Upstarted mountains, and each valley, kissed 

To sudden life, lay silver-bright: in air 

Flew she revealed, Maid-Moon with limbs all bare. 

Still as she fled, each depth — where refuge seemed — 
Opening a lone pale chamber, left distinct 
Those limbs: mid still-retreating blue, she teemed 
Herself with whiteness, — virginal, uncinct 
By any halo save what finely gleamed 
To outline not disguise her: heaven was linked 



Master Vergil 


99 


In one accord with earth to quaff the joy, 

Drain beauty to the dregs without alloy. 

Whereof she grew aware. What help? When, lo, 

A succourable cloud with sleep lay dense: 

Some pine-tree-top had caught it sailing slow. 

And tethered for a prize: in evidence 
Captive lay fleece on fleece of piled-up snow 
Drowsily patient: flake-heaped how or whence, 

The structure of that succourable cloud, 

What matter? Shamed she plunged into its shroud. 

Orbed — so the woman-figure poets call 
Because of rounds on rounds — that apple-shaped 
Head which its hair binds close into a ball 
Each side the curving ears — that pure undraped 
Pout of the sister paps — that . . . Once for all, 

Say — her consummate circle thus escaped 
With its innumerous circlets, sank absorbed, 

Safe in the cloud — O naked Moon full-orbed! 

But what means this? The downy swathes combine, 
Conglobe, the smothery coy-caressing stuff 
Curdles about her! Vain each twist and twine 
Those lithe limbs try, encroached on by a fluff 
Fitting as close as fits the dented spine 
Its flexile ivory outside-flesh: enough! 

The plumy drifts contract, condense, constringe, 

Till she is swallowed by the feathery springe. 

As when a pearl slips lost in the thin foam 
Churned on a sea-shore, and, o’er-frothed, conceits 
Herself safe-housed in Amphitrite’s dome, — 

If, through the bladdery wave-worked yeast, she meets 
What most she loathes and leaps from, — elf from gnome 
No gladlier, — finds that safest of retreats 
Bubble about a treacherous hand wide ope 
To grasp her — (divers who pick pearls so grope) — 



IOO 


Master Vergil 


So lay this Maid-Moon clasped around and caught 
By rough red Pan, the god of all that tract: 

He it was schemed the snare thus subtly wrought 
With simulated earth-breath, — wool-tufts packed 
Into a billowy wrappage. Sheep far-sought 
For spotless shearings yield such: take the fact 
As learned Virgil gives it, — how the breed 
Whitens itself for ever: yes, indeed! 

If one forefather ram, though pure as chalk 
From tinge on fleece, should still display a tongue 
Black ’neath the beast’s moist palate, prompt men baulk 
The propagating plague: he gets no young: 

They rather slay him, — sell his hide to caulk 

Ships with, first steeped in pitch, — nor hands are wrung 

In sorrow for his fate: protected thus, 

The purity we love is gained for us. 

So did the Girl-Moon, by just her attribute 
Of unmatched modesty betrayed, lie trapped, 

Bruised to the breast of Pan, half-god half-brute, 

Raked by his bristly boar-sward while he lapped 
— Never say, kissed her! that were to pollute 
Love’s language — which moreover proves unapt 
To tell how she recoiled — as who finds thorns 
Where she sought flowers — when, feeling, she touched — 
horns! 

Then — does the legend say? — first moon-eclipse 
Happened, first swooning-fit which puzzled sore 
The early sages? Is that why she dips 
Into the dark, a minute and no more, 

Only so long as serves her while she rips 

The cloud’s womb through and, faultless as before, 

Pursues her way? No lesson for a maid 

Left she, a maid herself thus trapped, betrayed? 

Ha, Virgil? Tell the rest, you! ‘To the deep 
Of his domain the wildwood, Pan forthwith 



Master Vergil 


IOI 


Called her, and so she followed’ — in her sleep, 
Surely? — ‘by no means spurning him.’ The myth 
Explain who may! Let all else go, I keep 
— As of a ruin just a monolith — 

This much, one verse of five words, each a boon: 
Arcadia, night, a cloud, Pan, and the moon. 


— Robert Browning [1812-1889] 



102 


Master Vergil 


THE COUNTRY LIFE 

To the Honoured M. End. Porter, Groome 
of the Bedchamber to his Maj. 

Sweet country life, to such unknown 
Whose lives are others, not their own! 

But, serving courts and cities, be 
Less happy, less enjoying thee. 

Thou never plow’st the oceans foame, 

To seek and bring rough pepper home; 

Nor to the Eastern Ind dost rove 
To bring from thence the scorched clove; 

Nor, with the losse of thy lov’d rest, 

Bring’st home the ingot from the west. 

No, thy ambition’s master-piece 
Flies no thought higher than a fleece; 

Or how to pay thy hinds, and cleere 
All scores, and so to end the yeere: 

But walk’st about thine own dear bounds, 

Not envying others larger grounds: 

For well thou know’st, ’tis not th’ extent 
Of land makes life, but sweet content. 

When now the cock, the plow-mans home, 
Calls forth the lilly-wristed morne, 

Then to thy corn-fields thou dost goe, 

Which though well soyl’d, yet thou dost know 
That the best compost for the lands 
Is the wise masters feet and hands. 

There at the plough thou find’st thy teame, 
With a hind whistling there to them, 

And cheer’st them up, by singing how 
The kingdoms portion is the plow. 

This done, then to th’ enameld meads 
Thou go’st, and as thy foot there treads, 

Thou seest a present God-like power 
Imprinted in each herbe and flower, 



Master Vergil 


103 

And smell’st the breath of great-ey’d kine, 

Sweet as the blossomes of the vine. 

Here thou behold’st thy large sleek neat. 

Unto the dew-laps up in meat; 

And, as thou look’st, the wanton steere. 

The heifer, cow, and oxe draw neere 
To make a pleasing pastime there. 

These seen, thou go’st to view thy flocks 
Of sheep, safe from the wolfe and fox, 

And find’st their bellies there as full 
Of short sweet grasse as backs with wool; 

And leav’st them, as they feed and fill, 

A shepherd piping on a hill. 

For sports, for pagentrie, and playes, 

Thou hast thy eves and holydayes; 

On which the young men and maids meet, 

To exercise their dancing feet, 

Tripping the comely country round, 

With daffadils and daisies crown’d. 

Thy wakes, thy quintels, here thou hast. 

The May-poles too with garlands grac’t; 

Thy morris-dance; thy Whitsun-ale; 

Thy sheering-feast; which never faile: 

Thy Harvest Home; thy wassaile bowle, 

That’s tost up after Fox i’ th’ Hole; 

Thy mummeries; thy Twelfe-tide kings 
And queenes; thy Christmas revellings; 

Thy nut-browne mirthe; thy russet wit, 

And no man payes too deare for it. 

To these thou hast thy times to goe 
And trace the hare i’ th’ trecherous snow; 

Thy witty wiles to draw, and get 
The larke into the trammell net; 

Thou hast thy cockrood, and thy glade 
To take the precious phesant made; 

Thy lime-twigs, snares, and pit-falls then, 

To catch the pilfring birds, not men. 

O happy life! if that their good 




io4 


Master Vergil 


The husbandmen but understood:* 

Who all the daye themselves doe please, 

And younglings, with such sports as these; 

And, lying down have nought t’affright 
Sweet sleep that makes more short the night. 

Caetera desunt. 

— Robert Herrick [1591-1674] 

>* Cf. Georgies II. 458 ff. 



Master Vergil 


105 


From THE DAISY 

Remember how we came at last 
To Como; shower and storm and blast 
Had blown the lake beyond his limit, 
And all was flooded; and how we past 

From Como, when the light was gray, 
And in my head, for half the day, 

The rich Virgilian rustic measure 
Of Lari Maxume, all the way, 

Like ballad-burthen music, kept, 

As on the Lariano crept 
To that fair port below the castle 
Of Queen Theodolind, where we slept. 


— Alfred , Lord Tennyson [1809-1892] 

















THE ECLOGUES 


Who has not heard the Arcadian shepherd's quires, 
Which now have gladly chang'd their native tongue , 

And sitting by slow Mincius, sport their fill , 

With sweeter voice and never-equalled skill , 

Chanting their amorous lays unto a Roman quill? 

— Phineas Fletcher 









VIRGIL’S FIRST ECLOGUE 
REMEMBERED* 


First Century, B.C. 

When Tityrus, two thousand years ago, 
Reclining ’neath his beech-tree’s ample shade, 
To Meliboeus, homeless made by war, 

(A Mantuan who had met a Belgian’s fate 
In those pre-Christian days of pagan pax ) 
Discoursed of plenteous peace and rustic wealth, 
And love of country visioned as a god, 

He pledged his patriotic ardor thus: 


‘ The stags shall pasture buoyant in the sky , 
The seas in tree-tops leave their fish to die , 
Of Arar shall the distant Parthian drink , 
Athirst the German kneel on Tigris' brink , 
Ere Til forget thy face or lightly hold 
Thy name , 0 guardian of my field and fold. 9 


And Meliboeus answered with a sigh, 

£ Thou'rt favored , Tityrus , while here am I 
Thrust headlong by a soldier from the soil 
Rich with my kindred's immemorial toil; 

My standing crops the alien robbers sweep 
Clad in the stolen fleeces of my sheep. 

Have I a distant hope , shall I at last 
Return when travel has confused the past 
From exile bleak , and view what now I mourn , 

The low , thatched hut where I was born?' 

* Read at the meeting of the Upper Hudson Phi Beta Kappa Association at 
Albany, February 24, [1917] in celebration of the centenary of the organization of 
Alpha Chapter at Union College. 


109 


I IO 


Master Vergil 


Twentieth Century A.D. 

August , igi6 

The German presses toward the ancient stream 
(That once as ‘Hiddekel’ from Eden flowed 
But now as ‘Tigris’ dreams of Nineveh) 

And hopes with helmet in his hand to drink 
Beneath the Bagdad sun near Babylon; 

(For Babylon hath been a golden bowl 
‘From which the nations of the earth have drunk 
And are gone mad,’ as Jeremiah cried 
Long, long ago and might still cry to-day). 

The German’s ally, near old Parthia’s bounds, 
Turns from the desert edge of Syria’s sands, 

And seeks the ‘Arar’ that is now the ‘Saone’ 
Whose sources lie beneath the Vosges, not far 
From that fair christ’ning font of St. Die, 

Where first ‘America’ was writ in type 
And graven on a New World map. 

.And still 

In this New World undreamed in Virgil’s day 
Dwells Tityrus in his exclusive ease, 

Thanking his Providence for what augments 
The flocks and crops and stocks of Tityrus, 

While Meliboeus wanders shelterless; 

And still he sings: ‘The Parthian!s sons shall drink 

Of Arads fount; and on the Tigris' 1 brink 

Shall kneel the tawny Hohenzollern hosts 

To quench their thirst — keeping their long-time boasts; 

The Zeppelins shall graze in our own skies 

And hostile U-boats in our harbors rise , 

Ere Til forget thy face , who blessest me 
With safe and bountiful neutrality. 

* * * * 

‘ Meanwhile , 0 Meliboeus , oier thy cause 
My heart doth grieve. In proof: I give thee gauze 



Master Vergil 


111 


To bind thy wounds, and calories of bread, 
Close-measured, from my table, war-bespread; 

And Amaryllis, ftftuzg at my side, 

My beauteous, precious, war-endowered bride. 

Will knit thee cod ring for thy weary feet, 

Since thou must walk in alien land and street. — 

My eggy and curds bring prices fabulous 
I can afford to be so bounteous .’ 

December, 1916 

Shall we, like Tityrus, in ease, still sing 

Our self-contented songs; nor dare the thing 

For human right amid the world’s red wrong, 

That makes our flaunted freedom worth a song? 

Shall Meliboeus into exile go 

And we, wealth-swollen, empty pity show? 

Shall Belgian, Serb, Armenian and Pole 
Be left by savagery to famine’s dole, — 

Their bones be valued only for their yield 
Of phosphate for the garden and the field? 
Come, let us in protesting word unite 
And say that word with all our heart and might! 

February, 1917 

I’ll give thee, Tityrus, another song, 

A New World song, that thou mayst sing as long 
As thou hast sung beneath thy beech-wood tree 
Thine ancient idyl of prosperity: 

‘Land of undaunted youth, 

Land of the last-born truth, 

For thee one dares to fight; 

I will not vaunt nor brag, 

But I will guard thy flag, 

Flying for human right: 

( A flag upon the land 
That shall for justice stand; 



I I 2 


Master Vergil 


A flag upon the sea 

That makes its pathways free; 

A flag upon the breast 
Of him who dares protest 
And sacrifice his all 
At its headn-crying call. 

‘ The stags shall buoyant pasture in the sky, 

The seas in tree-tops leave their fish to die, 

Ere Til forget this flag or, selfish, hold 

From earth's stark need, myself, my field, my fold.' 

L’Envoi 

December, igiy 

Flag of the gleaming stars, 

Lead thou us on our darkened way 
Till thy encrimsoned bars 

Shall mark the dawn of earth’s new day! 


— John Finley 



Master Vergil 


11 3 


THE DAWN * 

(For C. F. S .) 

Friend, you recall how we lingered above the bluffs of Wisconsin , 

Talking of Roman and Greek there by the Indian stream , 

Under a sun of September , apart from the camp in the dingle , 

Once on a wonderful noon , nearly a decade ago? — 

Minded of that , I am minded to give you a lyrical secret: 

How in the breast of a lad love of the Muses began. 

Fresh from a starry sleep, on a school-boy morning 
of April 

(Over the meadows a mist, oriole out in the elm), 

Fresh from my dreams of the Marvelous Book I had opened 
at bed-time 

(Pictures of altar and urn, Sibyl, Silenus, and lyre), 

There in the homestead at Hilton I sat by the window 
with Vergil: 

Under the morning star, words like woods to explore. 

Tityre , tu patulae. . . . O eery quest in the silence! 

Magic of dawn on the earth, magic of dawn in the boy! 

Thrilling from letter to letter and every word an en¬ 
chantment. . . . 

Silvestrem tenui . . . even ere meaning was known! 

Eager, how eager my fingers divided the glossary’s pages, 

Finding me key after key, golden though printed in 
black! 

Proudly, how proudly my spirit deployed its strength over 
grammar, 

Linking the noun to its kin, binding the verb to its man. 

Then, as the words became phrases and phrases grew into 
verses 

(Change as subtle and vast, even as cell into flow’r), 


From A Son of Earth , New York, The Viking Press, 1928. 



Master Vergil 


114 


O can I tell you the soul of the beautiful poignant Adven¬ 
ture 

(Sun just over the hill, oriole out in the elm), 

There in the quiet of morning, with sleepers three in the 
homestead 

(Father who’d bought me the Book, mother and sister 
who knew), 

Where, with the mist on the meadow, I sat by the window 
with Vergil: 

Sat with the soul of the dead — living again in my 
own! — 

Back by the Mantuan uplands, Mincius stream, and 
Cremona 

(Far, how far from the mill, down by the Quarry and 
Cave); 

Seeing, as never before, though often I’d wandered the 
hillsides 

(After the dogwood in spring, after persimmons in fall), 

Feeling, as never before, though often I’d wandered the 
valleys 

(Summer and winter away — off to the orchards and 
oaks), 

Seeing, and feeling, and hearing the Tree as a Being of 
nature 

(Tityrus under the beech, oriole out in the elm) . . . 

Tityre, tu patulae recubans sub tegmine fagi: 

Tegminefagi . . . the Tree! Tegmine fagi . . . the Bird! 

Out of that tree, as I fancy, have budded all blossoms and 
creatures, 

Flowed all rivers I know, whispered all winds I have 
heard. 

Tityre , lentus in umbra . . . Man’s mystical union with 
Nature, 

Man in his sorrow and joy, came to me there ‘in the 
shade.’ 

Dulcia linquimus arva . . . the love of the acres we’ve 
planted, 

Love that is pain when we go, wanderers ever on earth. 



Master Vergil 


111 

Nos patriam fugimus . . . and home and country were 
dearer 

(Though we had caroled at school ‘Country, my coun¬ 
try of thee’) . . . 

Formosam resonare doces Amaryllida silvas. . . . 

(Bessie with ribbon and braid, oriole out in the elm).... 
Formosam resonare . . . and sylvan Muse and the reed- 
pipe! . . . 

Magic of dawn on the earth, magic of dawn in the boy! 

Friend , sometime on a walk in the willows west of Mendota 
(Sunset Point if you will , — Wingra or Oregon Road), 

Let us unravel , in sportive discourse and deft analytic , 

Purport and cause of the spell , here recorded for you: 

For , of a truth , you have guarded the Gift , have guarded and given , 
Loving the Greek in marls soul — quickened to-day in how few. 

— William Ellery Leonard 












































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